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The  Question  of  the  Philippines 


AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  GRADUATE  CLUB  OF 
LELAND  STANFORD  JUNIOR  UNIVERSITY 

ON 
FEBRUARY  14,  1899 


H 


BY  DAVID  STARR  JORDAN 

Pritidtnt  of  tk*  Uwvtrstty 


PALO  ALTO,  CALIFORNIA 

1899 
PRINTED  FOR  THE  GRADUATE  CLUB  BY  THE  COURTESY  OF 

JOHN  J.  VALENTINE,  ESQ. 


The  Question  of  the  Philippines 


AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  GRADUATE  CLUB  OP 
LELAND  STANFORD  JUNIOR  UNIVERSITY 

ON 
FEBRUARY  14,   1899 


BY  DAVID   STARR   JORDAN 

President  of  the  University 


PALO  ALTO,  CALIFORNIA 

1899 
PRINTED  FOR  THE  GRADUATE  CLUB   BY  THE  COURTESY  OF 

JOHN  J.  VALENTINE,  ESQ. 


PRESS  OF 
THE  HICKS-JUDD  COMPANY 

SAN  FRANCISCO 


PREFATORY  NOTE; 


This  address  was  read  before  the  Graduate 
Club  of  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University  on 
February  14,  1899.  It  was  afterwards,  by 
request,  repeated  before  the  Congregation  of  Tem 
ple  Emanu-El  in  San  Francisco,  and  before  the 
Berkeley  Club  of  Oakland.  It  is  published  for 
the  Graduate  Club  by  the  courtesy  of  Mr. 
John  J.  Valentine. 

DAVID  STARR  JORDAN. 


PAI,O  Ai/ro,  CAWFORNIA. 
March  15,  1899. 


178768 


I 


The  Question  of  the  Philippines. 


I  wish  to  maintain  a  single  proposition.  We  should  withdraw 
from  the  Philippine  Islands  as  soon  as  in  disnitv  we  can.  It  is  bad 
statesmanship  to  make  these  alien  people  our  partners;  it  is  a  crime 
to  make  them  our  slaves.  If  we  hold  their  lands  there  is  no  middle 
course.  Only  a  moral  question  brings  a  crisis  to  man  or  nation.  In 
the  presence  of  a  crisis,  only  righteousness  is  right  and  only  justice  is 
safe. 

I  ask  you  to  consider  with  me  three  questions  of  the  hour. 
Why  do  we  want  the  Philippines  ?  What  can  we  do  with  them  ? 
What  will  they  do  to  us  ? 

These  questions  demand  serious  consideration,  not  one  at  a  time 
but  all  together.  We  should  know  clearly  our  final  intentions  as 
a  nation,  for  it  is  never  easy  to  retrace  false  steps.  We  have  made  too 
many  of  these  already.  It  is  time  for  us  to  grow  serious.  Even  the 
most  headlong  of  our  people  admit  that  we  stand  in  the  presence  of  a 
real  crisis,  while,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  there  is  no  hand  at  the  helm. 
But  the  problem  is  virtually  solved  when  we  know  what  our  true 
interests  are.  Half  the  energy  we  have  spent  in  getting  into  trouble 
will  take  us  honorably  out  of  it.  Once  convinced  that  we  do  not  want 
the  Philippines  it  will  be  easy  to  abandon  them  with  honor.  If  we 
are  to  take  them  we  cannot  get  at  it  too  soon.  The  difficulty  is  that 
we  do  not  yet  know  what  we  want,  and  we  are  afraid  that  if  we  once 
let  these  people  go  we  shall  never  catch  them  again.  With  our  long 
ings  after  Imperialism  we  have  not  had  the  nerve  to  act. 

Let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  actual  condition  of  affairs. 
By  the  fortunes  of  war  the  capital  of  the  Philippine  Islands  fell,  last 
May,  into  the  hands  of  our  navy.  The  city  of  Manila  we  have  held, 
and  by  dint  of  bulldog  diplomacy  our  final  treaty  of  peace  has 
assigned  to  us  the  four  hundred  or  fourteen  hundred  islands  of  the 
whole  archipelago.  To  these  we  have  as  yet  no  real  title.  We  can 
get  none  till  the  actual  owners  have  been  consulted.  We  have  a 
legal  title  of  course,  Jbut  no  moral  title  _and_no  actual  possession. 
We  have  only  purchased  Spain's  quit  claim  deed  to  property 
she  could  not  hold,  and  which  she  cannot  transfer.  For  the 
right  to  finish  the  conquest  of  the  Philippines  and  to  close  out  the 

5 


insurrection  which  has  gone  on  for  almost  a  century  we  have  agreed, 
on  our  part,  to  pay  $20,000,000  in  cash,  for  the  people  of  the  Islands 
and  the  land  on  which  they  were  born,  and  which,  in  their  fashion,  they 
have  cultivated.  This  is  a  sum  absurdly  large,  if  we  consider  only 
the  use  we  are  likely  to  make  of  the  region  and  the  probable  cost  of 
its  reconquest  and  rule.  It  seems  criminally  small  if  we  consider  the 
possible  returns  to  us  or  to  Spain  from  peddling  out  the  Islands  as 
old  junk  in  the  open  market,  or  from  leasing  them  to  commercial 
companies  competent  to  exploit  them  to  their  utmost.  The  price  is 
high  when  we  remember  that  the  United  States  for  a  century  has  felt 
absolutely  no  need  for  such  property  and  would  not  have  taken  any 
of  it,  or  all  of  it,  or  any  other  like  property  as  a  gift.  The  price  is 
high,  too,  when  we  observe  that  the  failure  of  Spain  placed  the  Islands 
not  in  our  hands  but  in  the  hands  of  their  own  people,  a  third  party, 
whose  interest  we,  like  Spain,  have  as  yet  failed  to  consider.  Emilio 
Aguinaldo,  the  liberator  of  the  Filipinos,  the  "  Washington  of  the 
Orient,"  is  the  de  facto  ruler  of  most  of  the  territory.  In  our  hands 
is  the  city  of  Manila,  alone,  and  we  cannot  extend  our  power  except  by 
bribery  or  by  force.  We  may  pervert  these,  fragile  patriots  as  Spain 
claims  to  have  done;  or,  like  Spain,  we  may  redden  the  swamps  of 
Luzon  with  their  rebellious  blood. 

"Who  are  these  Americans?"  Aguinaldo*  is  reported  to  ask, 
"these  people  who  talk  so  much  of  freedom  and  justice  and  the 
rights  of  man,  who  crowd  into  our  Islands  and  who  stand  as  the 
Spaniards  did  between  us  and  our  liberties  ?" 

What  right  have  we  indeed  ?  The  right  of  purchase  from 
Spain.  We  held  Spain  by  the  throat  and  she  could  not  choose  but 
seiLf 


*  According  to  Capt.  Gadsby,  U.  S.  V. 

t  "Ambrose  Bierce  has  given  an  account  of  this  transaction  cast  in  the 
lines  of  historical  drama,  and  quite  as  true  to  fact  as  the  best  of  such  records. 
ft  runs  as  follows  : 

"  '  McKinley — Have  the  goodness,  sir,  to  remove  your  hand  from  the  Phil 
ippine  Islands. 

"  '  Sagasta — But,  Senor,  you  have  no  right  to  these  Islands,  and  they  are 
worth  much  money  to  me. 

"  '  McK. — Very  well.     I  mean  to  give  you  twenty  million  dollars  for  them. 

"  '  Sag — Twenty  million  dollars  !  God  o'  my  soul  !  And  they  are 
worth  a  billion! 

"  '  McK. — My  friend,  it  is  an  axiom  of  political  economy  "that  property  is 
worth  what  it  will  bring;  the  Islands  will  bring  you  exactly  twenty  millions. 

"  '  Sag — From  you? 

€t  '  McK. — From  me.     There  arc  no  other  bidders. 
'  '  Sag. — But  it  is  not  an  open  market.     If  you  would  stand  aside — 

"  '  McK. — I   am    not    considering    hypothetical    cases    to-day;     we    must 

6 


^J 
If,  at  the  close  of  our  Revolutionary  War,  the  King  of  Franc 

coming  in  at  the  eleventh  hour  and  driving  the  English  from  our 
Capital,  had  bought  a  quit  claim  deed  to  the  colonies,  proposing  to 
retain  them  in  the  interest  of  French  commerce,  he  would  have  held 
exactly  the  position  in  which  our  administration  has  placed  the 
United  States. 

In  that  case  George  Washington  would  have  insisted,  as  Agui 
naldo  has  done,  that  only  the  people  who  own  it  have  any  sovereignty 
to  sell.  He  would  have  held  his  people's  land  against  all  comers, 
not  the  least  against  his  late  allies.  He  might  even  have  led  a  hope 
as  foolish  and  forlorn  as  that  which  inspired  the  late  pitiful  attack  upon 
our  forces  at  Manila,  if,  indeed,  there  was  such  an  attack,  for  there  is 
not  the  slightest  evidence  that  hostilities  were  begun  by  Aguinaldo. 

The  blood  shed  at  Manila  will  rest  heavy  on  those  the  people 
hold  responsible  for  it.  There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  where  this 
responsibility  rests.  A  little  courtesy,  a  little  tact,  on  the  part  of  j 
those  in  power  would  have  spared  us  from  it  all.  These  men  have 
not  led  a  forlorn  fight  against  Spain  for  all  these  years  to  be  tamely 
snubbed  and  shoved  aside  as  dogs  or  rebels  at  the  end.  If  the  Pres 
ident  had  assured  Aguinaldo  that  his  people  would  not  be  absorbed 
against  their  will,  there  would  have  been  peace  at  Manila.  If  he 
had  assured  the  people  of  the  United  States  that  no  vassal  lands 
would  be  annexed  against  their  will,  there  would  be  peace  at  Wash 
ington.  The  President  has  no  right  to  assume  in  speech  or  in  act  that 
the  United  States  proposes  to  prove  false  to  her  own  pledges  or  false 
to  her  own  history.  Unlike  the  fighting  editor,  he  is  sworn  to  uphold 
the  Constitution. 

If  we  may  trust  the  record,  Aguinaldo  became  our  ally  in  good 


look  at  the  situation  as  it  is.  The  Islands  are  going  to  bring  you  twenty  million 
dollars;  that,  therefore,  is  their  value,  and  that  is  what  I  offer  you. 

"  '  Sag. — Madre  de  Dios  ! — what  logic  i  Senor,  you  should  have  the  chair 
of  Dialectics  in  our  great  university  of — 

"  '  McK. — It  is  not  impossible;  our  demands  are  not  all  submitted. 

"  '  Sag — Nor — Pardon  me,  Senor — submitted  to. 

"  'McK. — I  trust  in  God  for  that.  This  war  is,  on  our  side,  for  Liberty, 
Humanity,  Progress,  Religion — 

"  '  Sag. — Porto  Rico,  Guam  and  the  Philippines.  He  who  is  in  God's  pay 
does  not  starve.  Will  your  Excellency  permit  me  to  indulge  in  a  little  logic  ? 
— not  as  good  as  that  of  your  Excellency,  but  such  as  we  can  pick  up  in  illiterate 
Spain. 

"  '  McK.— Well. 

"  '  Sag. — Either  you  have  a  right  to  the  Philippines,  or  you  have  not. 
If  you  have,  why  do  you  pay  for  them  ?  If  you  have  not,  why  do  you  take 
them  ? 

And  in  such  fashion  the  war  for  humanity  comes  to  a  business-like  end. 


faith  on  the  belief  that  we  were  working  with  him  for  the  freedom  of 
his  people.  In  good  faith  our  consuls  made  him  promises  we  have 
never  repudiated,  but  which,  after  six  months  of  silence  by  the  casting 
vote  of  our  Vice-President,  we  refuse  to  make  gocd.  These  promises 
were  in  line  with  our  pledges  to  Cuba.  The  consuls,  like  Aguinaldo, 
supposed  that  we  meant  what  we  said.  When  we  pledged  ourselves 
to  give  up  the  prisoners  he  had  taken  we  acknowledged  him  as  our 
ally;  and  our  threats  to  arrest  him,  for  holding  his  prisoners,  as 
shown  in  the  published  correspondence  of  General  E.  S.  Otis,  brought 
on  the  present  wanton  bloodshed.  In  any  case,  we  should  have  lost 
nothing  through  courteous  treatment,  and  our  dignity  as  a  nation 
would  not  have  suffered  even  though  a  civil  hearing  had  been  given 
to  his  envoy,  Agoncillo.  It  may  be  that  Agoncillo  is  a  coward  as  our 
funny  papers  picture  him,  but  that  should  not  make  him  lonesome  in 
Washington. 

We  know  nothing  of  Philippine  matters,  save  through  cablegrams 
passed  through  government  censorship,  and  from  the  letters  and 
speech  of  men  of  the  army  and  navy.  The  letters  and  cablegrams  do 
not  always  tell  the  same  story.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  General 
Otis  has  been  promoted  for  gallantry  at  the  slaughter  of  the  fifth  of 
February  and  in  the  subsequent  skirmishes  which  have  left  20,000 
natives  homeless.  This  is  right  if  he  acted  under  orders,  for  a 
soldier  must  obey.  If  he  acted  on  his  own  motion,  he  should  have 
been  cashiered.  He  should  neither  have  provoked  nor  permitted  a 
conflict  if  any  leniency  or  diplomacy  could  have  prevented  it.  Even 
taking  the  most  selfish  view  possible  as  to  our  plans,  their  success 
must  depend  on  our  retention  of  the  respect  and  good  will  of  the  sub 
ject  people. 

If  the  Filipinos  are  our  subjects,  they  have  the  right  to  be  heard 
before  condemnation.  If  they  are  our  allies,  they  have  the  right  to 
be  heard  before  repudiation.  Their  rights  are  older  than  ours.  It 
was  their  struggle  for  freedom  before  most  of  our  people  had  even 
heard  of  their  existence.  We  may  treat  these  matters  as  we  will,  but, 
in  the  light  of  history,  we  shall  appear  with  the  tyrant  and  the  coward, 
and  our  act  be  the  fit  conclusion  of  the  "  century  of  dishonor." 
"The  wreck  of  broken  promises,"  says  General  Miles,  referring  to 
our  Indian  treaties,  "  is  strewn  across  the  United  States  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific."  We  have  broken  the  record  now  for  we 
have  expanded  it  to  the  Orient.  "  Why  is  it,"  a  friend  once  asked 
General  Crooks,  ''that  you  have  such  influence  with  the  Indians?  '' 
"  Because  I  always  keep  my  word"  was  the  reply. 

To  be  sure  Aguinaldo  may  not  be  much  of  a  Washington,  a 
Washington  of  the  hen-roost  type,  perhaps,  as  the  brigand  patriots  of 

8 


Spanish  colonies  have  been  in  the  past.  As  to  this  we  have  not 
much  right  to  speak.  We  have  never  heard  his  side  of  the  case,  and 
we  have  listened  only  to  Spanish  testimony.  It  is  worthy  of  note 
that  our  returned  officers  from  Manila,  who  are  men  competent  to 
judge,  speak  of  him  in  terms  of  the  highest  respect.  His  govern-  , 
ment,  which  we  try  to  destroy,  is  the  most  capable,  enlightened,  and 
just  these  Islands  have  ever  known.  These  germs  of  civic  liberty 
constitute  the  most  precious  product  of  the  Philippines.  But  what 
ever  his  character  or  motives,  he  has  one  great  advantage  which 
Washington  possessed — he  is  in  the  right.  By  that  fact  he  is 
changed  from  an  adventurer,  a  soldier  of  fortune,  into  a  hero,  an 
instrument  of  destiny.  If  Aguinaldo  betrays  his  people  by  selling 
out  to  us,  the  heroism  of  the  people  remains.  When  men  die  for 
independence  there  is  somewhere  a  hero.  Self-sacrifice  for  an  idea 
means  some  fitness  for  self-government. 

Whatever  we  may  choose  to  do  Aguinaldo  is  a  factor,  and  our 
sovereignty  over  his  islands  must  be  gained  through  peaceful  con 
cession  if  it  is  gained  at  all.  We  could  crush  Aguinaldo  easily 
enough,  but  we  dare  not.  "  Instans  tyrannus!  "  However  feeble  he 
may  be  while  we  run  our  fires  around  "  his  creep-hole"  he  has  only 
to  "clutch  at  God's  skirts,"  as  in  Browning's  poem,  and  it  is  we 
who  are  afraid.  This  great,  strong,  lusty  nation  is  too  brave  to  do 
a  cowardly  deed.  In  spite  of  the  orgies  of  our  newspapers,  we  are 
still  bothered  by  a  national  conscience.  We  do  not  like  to  fight  in 
foreign  lands  against  women  with  cropped  hair  defending  their  own 
homes;  against  naked  savages  with  bows  and  arrows,  nor  in  bat 
tles  likened  to  a  Colorado  rabbit  drive. 

The  Filipinos  are  not  rebels  against  law  and  order  but  against  j 
alien  control.     As  a  Republic  under  our   protection   or  without   it,    : 
they  stood  apparently  ready  to  give  us  any  guarantee   we  might  ask 
as  to  order  and  security. 

We  may  easily  destroy  the  organized  army  of  the  Filipinos,  but 
that  does  not  bring  peace.  In  the  cliffs  and  jungles  they  will  defy  us 
for  a  century  as  they  have  defied  Spain.  According  to  Dewey,  the 
Filipinos  are  "  fighters  from^away  hn^k. "  These  four  words  from 
Dewey  mean  more  triafT  forty  would  from  an  ordinary  warrior.  In 
Sumatra  it  has  cost  the  Dutch  upwards  of  300,000  men  to  subdue 
Acheen,  and  its  Malay  chieftains  are  still  defiant.  Three  hundred 
thousand  men,  of  whom  two-thirds  rotted  in  the  swamps,  never  see 
ing  a  foe  or  a  battle.  We  shall  abandon  the  struggle  in  very  shame. 
Four  thousand  Filipinos  fell  on  the  glorious  fifth  of  February.  At 
the  rate  of  4000  a  day,  as  Mr.  Reed  calculates,  the  race  will  last 
seven  years.  A  deficit  of  $160,000,000  a  year  will  appeal  to  our 

9 


people,  if  the  glory  and  the  bloodshed  do  not.  I  see  in  the  papers 
to-day  (March  i)  that  the  honorable  Secretary  has  just  saved  a 
million  of  dollars,  reducing  this  deficit  in  corresponding  degree. 
This  he  has  taken  from  the  return  allowance  of  those  volunteers  at 
Manila  who  will  not  re-enlist.  Such  economies  touch  the  hearts  of 
the  people.  The  people  will  not  foot  the  bills.  They  are  ashamed 
of  shame,  and  their  eyes  once  opened  they  cannot  be  coaxed  nor 
driven. 

Let  us^  consider  the  first  of  our  propositions.  Why  do  we  want 
the  Philippines?  To  thisj[_can__give  no  answer  of  my  own.  I  can 
see^ioTone~va1id  reason  why  we  should~wa~nt  ttielriTnor  any~~why  they 
should  want  us  except  as  strong  and  friendly  advisers.  As  vassals  of 
the  United  States  they  have  no  future  before  them;  as  citizens  they 
have  no  hope.  But  even  if  we  could  by  kind  paternalism  make 
their  lives  happier  or  more  effective,  I  am  sure  that  we  will  not.  Our 
philanthropy  is  less  than  skin  deep.  The  syndicates  waiting  to  exploit 
the  Islands,  and  incidentally  to  rob  their  own  stockholders,  are  not 
interested  in  the  moral  uplifting  of  negroes  and  dagoes.  On  the 
other  hand  I  am  sure  that  their  possession  can  in  no  wise  help  us,  not 
even  financially  or  commercially. 

The  movement  for  colonial  extention  rests  on  two  things:  Per 
sistent  forgetfulness  of  the  principles  of  democratic  government  on 
the  one  hand;  hopeless  ignorance  of  the  nature  of  the  tropics  and 
its  people  on  the  other. 

But  while  I  give  no  reason  of  my  own,  I  have  listened  carefully 
to  the  speech  of  others,  and  the  voices  I  have  heard  are  legion. 
Their  opinions  I  shall  try  in  a  way  to  classify,  with  a  word  of  com 
ment  on  each.  And,  first,  I  place  those  which  claim  some  sort  of 
moral  validity,  though  I  acknowledge  no  basis  for  such  claim.  For 
the  only  morality  a  nation  can  know  is  justice.  To  be  fair  as  between 
man  and  man,  to  look  after  mutual  interests  and  to  do  those  neces 
sary  things  out  of  the  reach  of  the  individual  is  the  legitimate  func 
tion  of  a  nation.  It  cannot  be  generous,  because  it  has  no  rights  of 
its  own  of  which  it  can  make  sacrifice.  Moral  obligations  belong  to 
its  people  as  individuals.  Legal  obligations,  financial  obligations,  the 
pledges  of  treaties,  only  these  can  bind  nation  to  nation.  A  nation 
cannot  be  virtuous,  for  that  is  a  matter  of  individual  conduct.  It 
must  be  just.  So  far  as  it  fails  to  be  this,  it  is  simply  corrupt. 

It  is  said  that  if  we  do  not  annex  the  Philippines  we  shall  prove 
false  to  our  obligations.     Obviously  there  are  two  primary  pledges 
which  must   precede  all   others  ;  first,   the  obligation  of   our  whole  "7 
history  that  we  shall   never  conquer  and   annex  an  unwilling  people  ;   ( 
second,  our  pledge  at  the   beginning  of    the  war,  that  the  United 

10  * 


States  has  no  disposition  to  seize  territory  or  to  dictate   its  govern 
ment.* 

Several  questions  arise  at  once.  What  are  those  obligations  ?  To 
whom  are  they  held?  By  what  responsibility  have  they  been 
incurred  ? 

To  the  first  question  we  may  get  this  answer.  We  are  under 
obligations  to  see  that  the  Philippines  are  no  longer  subject  to  Spanish  T 
tyranny  and  misrule.  In  the  words  of  General  Miles,  "Twelve  mil 
lions  of  people  that  a  year  ago  were  suffering  under  oppression! 
tyranny,  and  cruelty  are  to-day  under  our  protection.  It  would  be  the 
crime  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  turn  them  back  again."  Very 
well,  then,  we  shall  not  turn  them  back,  nor  could  we  do  it  if  we 
would.  Spain  is  helpless  and  harmless.  She  has  ceased  to  be  a 
factor  in  the  world's  affairs.  What  next  ?  Let  us  quote  further 
from  General  Miles  :  "  If  you  cannot  give  them  government  in  their 
own  country,  if  you  cannot  establish  government  for  them,  you  can,  at 
least,  protect  them  until  such  time  as  they  shall  be  prepared  for  self- 
government.  And  if  they  do  not  care  to  come  and  be  part  of  this 
country  you  can  see  to  it  that  they  have  a  liberal  and  free  govern, 
ment  such  as  you  enjoy  yourselves."  ~*^ 

This  is,  perhaps,  an  average  statement  of  our  supposed  obliga 
tions.  If  we  had  adopted  this  view  we  should  have  had  no  war  at 
Manila  and  our  honor  would  be  untarnished.  Some  would  put  it  more 
strongly.  Our  obligations  demand  that  we  take  the  Islands  by  force? 
lest  they  fall  back  into  the  hands  of  Spain,  or,  still  worse,  lest  they 
become  victims  of  the  cruel  schemes  of  the  German  Emperor,  ever 
anxious  to  try  his  hand  on  matters  of  which  he  knows  nothing.  For 
the  House  of  Hohenzollern,  as  well  as  ourselves,  is  afflicted  with  a 
"  manifest  destiny." 

But  this  German  bugaboo  is  set  up  merely  as  an  excuse.  No 
nation  on  earth  would  dare  set  the  heel  of  oppression  on  any  land  our 
flag  has  made  free.  The  idea  that  every  little  nation  must  be  subject  to  ( 
•some  great  one  is  one  of  the  most  contemptible  products  of  military 
commercialism.  No  nation,  little  or  big,  is  *'  derelict"  that  minds  its 
own  business,  maintainsjlaw  and  order,  and  respects  the  development  of 
its  own  people.  If  we  behave  honorably  towards  the  people  we  have 
freed,  we  shall  set  a  fashion  which  the  powers  will  never  dare  to  violate. 


*  These  were  noble  words  and  a  noble  nation  must  live  up  to  them:  "The 
United  States  hereby  disclaims  any  disposition  or  intention  to  exercise  sovereignty, 
jurisdiction,  or  control  over  said  Islands,  except  for  the  pacification  thereof,  and 
asserts  its  determination  when  that  is  accomplished  to  leave  the  government  and  con 
trol  of  the  Island  to  its  people."  The  plea  that  they  were  intended  for  Cuba  only  and 
do  not  pledge  us  to  like  action  elsewhere  is  too  cowardly  to  permit  of  discussion. 

11 


We  can  be  under  no  obligations  under  our  Constitution  and 
theory  of  government,  to  do  what  cannot  be  done,  what  will  not  be 
done,  or  ought  not  to  be  done. 

Still  others  put  the  case  in  this  way:  "  We  have  destroyed  the 
only  stable  government  in  the  Philippines.  It  is  our  duty  to  establish 
another."  But  if  this  is  really  the  case  we  have  done  very  wrong. 
We  were  told  that  the  rule  of  Spain  was  not  stable,  that  it  "was  not 
just,  and  that  it  was  far  worse  than  no  rule  at  alj.  Our  sympathies 
were  with  those  who  would  destroy  this  government  of  Spain,  and  our 
armies  went  out  with  our  sympathies.  Either  we  were  on  the  wrong 
side  in  the  whole  business,  or  else  we  should  now  respect  the  rights  of 
the  people  we  set  forth  to  help.  If,  by  ill-  chance,  we  have  overturned 
the  only  stable  government,  we  must  help  the  people  to  make  another. 
"A  government  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  and  by  th«  people," 
would  be  a  good  kind  to  help  them  to- establish;  one  made  in  their 
own  interest  not  in  ours,  even  though  we  think  them  a  sorry  sort 
of  folk.  We  shall  not  talk  in  the  same  breath  of  our  duty  to  human 
ity  and  of  the  demands  of  American  commerce,  not  even  though  both 
speeches  be  canting  falsehoods,  v  Asa  matter  of  fact,  of  all  the  people 
of  the  tropics  the  inhabitants  of  Luzon  have  shown  most  promise  of 
fairly  wise  self-rule.  All  competent  judges  speak  in  the  highest  terms 
of  the  Cabinet  and  Parliament  at  Malolosand  of  their  wisdom  and  self- 
restraint.  At  the  same  time  under  whatever  rule,  these  people  will 
not  cease  to  be  orientals.>/ 

To  better  define  these  obligations  let  us  find  out  to  whom  they 
were  incurred.  Nobody  in  particular  lays  claim  to  them.  Surely  we 
are  not  bound  to  Spain,  for  she  feels  outraged  and  humiliated  by  the 
whole  transaction.  The  Filipinos  ask  for  nothing  more  of  us.  Doubt 
less  their  rulers  would  return  our  twenty  millions  and  give  us  half  a 
dozen  coaling  stations  if  that  would  hasten  our  departure.  It  is  their 
firm  resolve,  so  their  spokesmen  in  Hong  Kong  have  declared,  that 
they  will  not  consent  "to  be  experimented  upon  by  amateur  colonial 
administrators."  Even  our  "  benevolent  assimilation"  is  intoler 
able  on  the  terms  which  we  demand. 

It  was  for  freedom,  not  for  law  and  order,  that  the  Filipines 
and  the  Cubans  took  up  arms  against  Spain.  Good  order  we 
are  trying  to  bring  to  the  Filipinos,  but  that  does  not  satisfy. 
The  grave  is  quiet  but  it  is  not  freedom.  Perhaps  it  is  wrong  for  these 
people  to  care  for  freedom,  but  we  once  set  them  the  example,  as  we 
have  to  many  poor  people,  to  strive  for  a  liberty  they  have  never  yet 
won. 

More  likely  we  owe  obligations  to  the  city  of  Manila.  Her  busi 
ness  men  look  with  doubt  on  Aguinaldo  and  his  Cabinet,  with  golden 

12 


bands  and  whistles  and  peacock  quills  to  indicate  their  rank  and  titles. 
Doubtless  they  fear  the  native  rabble  and  the  native  methods  of  col 
lection  of  customs.  But,  again,  we  have  as  to  this  only  prejudiced 
testimony.  According  to  Lieutenant  Calkins,  an  honored  officer  in 
Dewey's  fleet,  the  life  and  property  of  foreigners  has  been  as  safe  in 
Malolos  as  in  San  Francisco.  Moreover,  these  peddlers  from  all  the 
world  have  no  claims  on  us.  They  have  long  fished  in  troubled 
waters  and  they  have  learned  the  art.  The  pound  of  flesh  they  have 
exacted  from  the  Filipino  in  times  of  peace  serves  as  the  insurance 
against  all  losses  in  war.  It  was  not  to  accommodate  a  few  petty 
tradesmen,  for  the  most  part  Chinese,  a  few  English,  and  a  dozen 
German  and  Japanese,  that  we  entered  into  this  war.  If  we  owe  them 
protection,  they  owe  something  to  us.  The  shelter  of  the  American 
flag  is  the  birthright  of  Americans.  Maybe  it  is  to  Germany  and 
France  that  we  owe  obligations.  To  keep  their  rulers  from  falling 
out  over  the  rich  spoils  of  the  Philippines,  we  are  under  bonds  to 
take  them  all  ourselves.  But  these  nations  are  not  in  the  slightest 
danger  of  fighting  each  other  or  fighting  us  over  the  Philippines,  (/the 
Philippines  would  be  as  safe  as  an  independent  republic,  with  our 
good  will,  as  they  would  be  in  another  planet.  The  huge  bloodless 
commercial  trusts  are  afraid  of  a  nation  with  a  conscience. 
Maybe  we  are  under  bonds  to  England  alone.  Her  advice 
is  "take  it,"  "take  it,"  and  those  of  her  politicians  hitherto 
most  prone  to  snub  and  humiliate  us  are  now  most  loud  in  their  en 
couragements.  No  doubt  these  clever  schemers  want  to  see  us 
entangled  in  the  troubles  of  the  Orient.  No  doubt  England  is  sin 
cere  in  thinking  that  a  few  years'  experience  in  the  hardest  of  schools 
will  teach  us  something  to  our  advantage  as  well  as  to  hers.  In  our 
compactness  lies  a  strength  which  alarms  even  England.  It  means 
our  future  financial  and  commercial  supremacy.  It  is  England's  way 
to  play  nation  against  nation  so  that  the  strong  ones  will  keep  the 
peace,  while  the  weaker  ones  are  helpless  in  her  hands. 

The  essential  spirit  of  British  diplomacy  is  to  recognize  neither 
morality  nor  justice  in  relation  to  an  opponent.  This  has  been 
explained  and  defended  by  Chamberlain  as  a  matter  of  course  in 
questions  of  party  rivalry  or  imperial  dominion.  The  only  wrong  is 
failure  to  carry  one's  point.  This  feature  of  British  diplomacy  has 
been  exemplified  a  hundred  times.  The  career  of  Cecil  Rhodes,  the 
struggle  with  Parnell,  the  Paris  Tribunal  of  Arbitration  in  1893,  are 
all  cases  in  point.  This  gives  the  clue  to  British  diplomatic  success, 
and  it  explains  also  the  cordial  hatred  the  world  over  for  "Anglo- 
Saxon  "  methods.  From  beginning  to  end  of  British  colonial  dealings 
with  lower  races  there  has  never  appeared  the  word  nor  the  thought 

13 


of  justice.  Law  and  trade  constitute  her  sole  interest  in  tropical 
humanity,  and  law  for  trade.  The  thought  of  human  equality, i^in  any 
sense  of  the  term,  is  foreign  to  British  polity.  To  emphasize  and 
perpetuate  inequality  lies  at  the  basis  of  British  polity. 

To  give  up  the  idea  of  <c  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law" 
would  be  to  abandon  our  sole  excuse  for  being  as  a  nation.  We 
would  then  become  a  mere  geographical  expression  or  police  arrange 
ment,  and  might  logically  as  well  join  Canada  as  a  dependency  of 
Great  Britain.  The  hope  that  we  may  do  so  is  the  source  of  much 
English  "good-will." 

If  we  feel  edgewise  toward  Germany*  or  if  Germany  is  unfriendly 
toward  us,  we  have  England  to  thank  for  it.  That  is  her  diplomacy. 
She  means  nothing  wrong  by  it.  She  is  our  friend,  and  in  politics  no 
water  is  thicker  than  her  blood.  We  shall  cease  twisting  the  British 
Lion's  tail  when  we  have  parts  equally  vulnerable.  We  shall  not 
thwart  England  when  we  are  dependent  upon  her  good  will.  But  all 
this  constitutes  no  obligation.  We  did  not  go  into  the  war  on 
England's  account,  nor  must  we  settle  it  to  suit  her.  It  is  our  first 
duty  to  follow  our  own  best  interests. 

I  yield  to  no  one  in  admiration  for  the  British  people  or  the  British 
character.  The  best  thoughts  of  the  world  spring  from  British  brains, 
and  British  hands  have  wrought  earth's  noblest  deeds.  But  British 
inequality  is  not  the  source  of  lofty  thought  or  brave  deed.  We  may 
emulate  England  in  all  matters  of  political  administration  save  the 
very  one  in  which  she  now  urges  on  us,  her  cynical  advice.  It  was  in 
protest  against  British  inequality  that  the  United  States  became  a 
nation.  British  politics  have  changed  their  form,  but  the  basal 
principles  remain,  and  inequality  and  injustice  are  no  more  lovely  now 
than  in  the  days  of  '76. 

A  London  journal  now  pictures  America  as  a  rosy-cheeked,  unso 
phisticated  youth  who  has  left  parental  boundaries  and  now  "  goes  out 
to  see  the  world."  We  may  accept  this  "lightly  proffered  laurel," 
but  we  may  note  that  the  youth  is  gaming  this  experience  under  the 
convoy  of  the  toughest  old  pirate  of  the  whole  water  front. 

Moreover,  England  welcomes  our  intrusion  in  the  Orient  because 
she  finds  in  us  a  necessary  ally.  We  become  a  partner  in  her  games. 
More  than  this  our  new  relations  must  break  down  our  Protective 
Tariff,  which  is  most  offensive  to  her,  as,  perhaps,  it  should  be  to  us. 
The  possession  of  Asiatic  colonies  makes  nonsense  of  our  Monroe 


*  Doubtless  German  industrial  jealousy  is  acute  and  well-grounded  and  the 
loss  of  many  good  soldiers  each  year  by  emigration  displeases  German  militarism. 
But  these  matters  have  gone  on  for  years  and  have  no  relation  with  the  war  with 
Spain. 

14 


Doctrine.  To  realize  this  fact  will  teach  us  needed  caution.  We 
shall  not  go  at  diplomacy  in  our  shirt  sleeves  any  more  as  though  it 
were  a  game  of  poker  on  a  Mississippi  flat-boat.  Besides  to  follow  in 
England's  footsteps  is  the  sincerest  form  of  flattery.  It  gives  her 
methods  the  sanction  of  our  respectability.  It  takes  from  the  oppo 
sition  party  in  Parliament  one  of  its  strongest  weapons.  But  this,  again, 
is  no  national  obligation.  If  any  obligation  whatever  exists,  it  is  to  the 
Filipinos.  It  is  met  by  insuring  their  freedom  from  Spain.  For  the 
rest,  their  fate  is  their  own. 

A  higher  class  of  English  public  men  advise  us  to  hold  the 
Philippines  because  they  do  not  understand  the  purpose  or  basis  of 
our  government.  Our  machinery  of  rule  is  so  constructed  that  it  will 
not  work  with  unwilling  people,  nor  with  people  lacking  in  the  Saxon 
instinct  for  co-operation.  England  has  no  scruples  and  no  ideals. 
Her  only  purpose,  in  the  tropics,  is  to  hold  to  doors  open  to  trade.  In 
this  business  she  has  the  lead  and  all  gains  of  all  trade  swell  her 
wealth.  In  her  capital  is  the  clearing  house  of  all  the  world.  There 
all  prices  are  fixed  and  all  bills  are  settled.  What  is  good  business 
for  her  might  be  impossible  for  us  who  are  not  as  a  nation  in 
business.  «* 

Admitting,  however,  an  obligation  to  do  something  to  somebody, 
by  whom  was  such  obligation  incurred  ?  To  whom  have  we  given 
authority  to  bind  us  to  change  the  whole  current  of  our  history  ?  Who 
is  the  mighty  agent  who  brings  about  such  things?  The  Constitution 
prescribes  methods  in  which  our  people  may  incur  obligations  by 
concurrent  action  of  Congress  and  the  President.  Have  \re  empow 
ered  a  commodore  or  even  a  rear-admiral  to  change  our  national 
purposes  ?  Did  the  victory  at  Manila  bind  our  people  to  anything  ? 
To  say  that  it  did  is  simple  nonsense.  This  was  an  incident  of  war, 
not  a  decision  of  peace.  Did  the  action  of  the  President  in  sending 
eighteen  thousand  soldiers  to  Manila  oblige  us  to  keep  them  there, 
even  if  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  had  to  be  changed  to 
give  this  act  justification  ?  If  so,  where  did  the  President  get  his 
authority  ?  This,  too,  was  an  incident  of  war.  Moreover,  the 
President  is  not  our  ruler  but  our  servant.  The  people  of 
the  United  States  are  subjec.t  to  no  obligations  save  those 
they  impose  on  themselves.  Neither  the  President  nor  the  Cabinet 
have  the  slightest  right  to  incur  national  obligations.  None  have  been 
incurred. 

But  it  may  be  that  efforts  have  been  made  to  bind  the  people 
to  "expansion"  in  advance  of  their  own  decision.  The  vic 
tory  at  Manila  was  so  unexpected,  so  heroic,  so  decisive,  that 
it  fired  the  imagination  of  our  nation.  It  set  the  world 

15 


to  talking  of  us,  and  it  inspired  our  politicians  with  dreams 
of  empire.  Such  dreams  are  far  from  the  waking  thoughts  of 
our  people,  though  while  the  spell  was  on  us  we  made  some 
movement  toward  turning  them  into  action.  These  steps  taken 
in  folly  our  nation  must  retrace.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  go  backward. 
For  this  reason  those  responsible  for  our  mistakes  insist  that  we  are 
sworn  to  go  ahead  whatever  the  consequences.  Political  futures  are 
involved  in  the  success  of  these  schemes.  And  so  every  effort  has 
been  used  to  rush  us  forward  in  the  direction  of  conquest.  Our 
volunteer  soldiery  is  held  as  an  army  of  invasion  to  rot  in  the  marshes 
when  summer  comes,  as  brave  men  once  rotted  in  Libby  and  Ander- 
sonville.  Each  step  in  the  series  has  been  planned  so  as  to  make 
the  next  seem  inevitable.  To  stop  to  reconsider  our  steps  is  made  to 
appear  as  backing  down.  The  American  people  will  not  back  down 
and  on  this  fact  the  whole  movement  depends.  This  movement  was 
not  a  conspiracy,  because  every  step  was  proclaimed  from  the  house 
tops  and  shouted  back  from  the  newspapers  and  the  mobs  around  the 
railway  stations.  No  wonder  the  fighting  editor  claims  to  dictate  our 
national  policy.  The  current  of  "manifest  destiny"  is  invoked  as 
the  cover  for  the  movement  of  Imperialism.  At  each  step,  too,  the 
powers  that  be  assure  us  that  they  are  not  responsible  for  the  invisible 
forces  of  Divine  Providence  have  taken  matters  from  their  hands. 

In  the  one  breath  we  are  told  that  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  we 
should  annex  the  Philippines  and  make  civilized  American  Christians 
of  their  medley  population.  In  another,  we  must  crush  out  the 
usurper,  Aguinaldo,  drive  his  rebel  followers  to  the  swamps  and  fast 
nesses  and  build  up  institutions  with  the  coward  remnant  that  survive. 

All  this  is  in  the  line  of  least  resistance.  Along  this  line 
Spain  ruled  and  plundered  her  colonies.  In  such  fashion  her  colonies 
impoverished  and  corrupted  Spain.  Because  she  had  no  moral  force 
to  prevent  it,  cruelty  and  corruption  became  her  manifest  destiny.  It 
will  be  ours  if  we  follow  her  methods.  Toward  such  a  manifest 
destiny,  "the  tumult  and  the  shouting"  of  to-day  are  hurrying  us 
along.  The  destiny  which  is  manifest  is  never  a  noble  one.  The 
strong  currents  of  history  run  deep,  and  the  fates  never  speak  through 
the  daily  newspapers.  "  Hard  are  the  steps,  rough-hewn  in  flintiest 
rock,  States  climb  to  power  by."  Providence  acts  only  through  men 
with  strong  brain  and  pure  heart.  The  hand  of  Providence  is  never 
at  the  helm  when  no  hand  of  man  is  there.  Nations  like  men  must 
learn  to  say  No,  when  Yes  is  fatal.  To  have  the  courage  to  stop 
throwing  good  money  after  bad  is  the  way  nations  keep  out  of  bank 
ruptcy.  To  back  out  now,  we  are  told,  would  expose  us  to  the 
ridicule  of  all  the  nations.  But  to  go  on  will  do  the  same.  It  is  we  who 

16 


have  made  ourselves  ridiculous.  We  have  already  roused  the  real 
distress  of  all  genuine  friends  in  Europe,  because  we  have  given  the 
lie  to  our  own  history  and  to  our  own  professions.  That  a  wise, 
strong,  peaceful  nation  should  rise  and  fight  for  the  freedom  of  the 
oppressed,  rescuing  them  with  one  strong  blow,  touches  the  imagina 
tion  of  the  world.  The  admiration  fades  into  disgust  in  view  of  the 
vulgar  scramble  for  territory  and  commercial  advantage,  and  the 
inability  of  those  responsible  to  guide  the  course  of  events  in  any 
safe  direction. 

I  know  that  words  of  this  sort  are  not  welcome.  The  funny 
papers  have  their  jokes  about  Senator  Hoar  and  Cassandra,  a  person 
who  once  took  a  dark  view  of  things  in  very  gloomy  times.  But 
there  are  occasions  when  optimism  is  treason.  Only  an  accomplice  is 
cheerful  in  presence  of  a  crime.  The  crisis  once  past  we  may  rejoice 
in  the  future  of  democracy.  It  is  a  hopeful  sign  to-day  that  the  peo 
ple  have  never  consented,  nor  have  those  directing  affairs  dared  trust 
the  plain  issue  of  annexation  either  to  the  people  or  to  Congress. 
Their  schemes  must  pass  through  indirection,  or  not  at  all. 

We  need  a  cheerful  and  successful  brigand  like  Cecil  Rhodes  to  pat 
us  on  the  back  and  stiffen  our  failing  nerves.  He  is  not  afraid. 
Why  should  we  flinch  from  the  little  misdeeds  we  have  in  contem 
plation  ? 

Alfred  Russell  Wallace,  in  the  London  Chronicle,  expresses  the 
"  disappointment  and  sorrow  which  I  feel  in  common,  I  am  sure,  with 
a  large  body  of  English  and  Americans,  at  the  course  now  being 
pursued  by  the  government  of  the  United  States  toward  the  people  of 
Cuba  and  the  Philippine  Islands. 

"The  Americans  claim  the  right  of  sovereignty  obtained  by  the 
treaty  and  have  apparently  determined  to  occupy  and  administer  the 
whole  group  of  Islands  against  the  will  and  consent  of  the  people. 
They  claim  all  the  revenues  of  the  country  and  all  the  public  means 
of  transport,  and  they  have  decided  to  take  all  this  by  military  force 
if  the  natives  do  not  at  once  submit.  Yet  they  say  that  they  come 
'  not  as  invaders  and  conquerors,  but  as  friends,  to  protect  the 
natives  in  their  homes,  their  employments  and  their  personal  and 
civil  rights,'  and  for  the  purpose  of  giving  them  'a  liberal  form  of 
government  through  representatives  of  their  own  race.'  But  these 
people  who  have  been  justly  struggling  for  freedom  are  still  spoken  of 
as 'insurgents' or 'rebels,' and  they  are  expected  to  submit  quietly  to 
an  altogether  new  and  unknown  foreign  rule  which,  whatever  may  be 
the  benevolent  intentions  of  the  President,  can  hardly  fail  to  be  a  more 
or  less  oppressive  despotism. 

17 


"It  may  be  asked  what  can  the  Americans  do?  They  cannot 
allow  Spain  to  come  back  again,  and  ....  they  are  responsible 
for  the  future  of  the  inhabitants.  But  surely  it  is  possible  to  revert 
to  their  first  expressed  intention  of  taking  a  small  island  only  as  a 
naval  and  coaling  station  and  to  declare  themselves  the  protectors  of 
the  Islands  against  foreign  aggression. 

"  Having  done  this  they  might  invite  the  civilized  portion  of  the 
natives  to  form  an  independent  government,  offering  them  advice  and 
assistance  if  they  wish  for  it,  but  otherwise  leaving  them  completely 
free.  If  we  express  our  disappointment  (as  Englishmen)  that  our 
American  kinsfolk  are  apparently  following  our  example,  it  is  because, 
in  the  matter  of  the  rights  of  every  people  to  govern  themselves,  we 
had  looked  up  to  them  as  about  to  show  us  the  better  way  by  respect 
ing  the  aspirations  towards  freedom,  even  of  less  advanced  races,  and 
by  acting  in  accordance  with  their  own  noble  traditions  and  republi 
can  principles." 

Do  we  say  that  these  obligations  were  entailed  by  chance,  and 
that  we  cannot  help  ourselves  ?  I  hear  many  saying,  "  If  only  Dewey 
had  sailed  out  of  Manila  Harbor,  all  would  have  been  well."  This 
seems  to  me  the  acme  of  weakness.  Dewey  did  his  duty  at  Manila; 
he  has  done  his  duty  ever  since.  Let  us  do  ours.  If  his  duty  makes 
it  harder  for  us,  so  much  the  more  we  must  strive.  It  is  pure  cowardice 
to  throw  the  responsibility  on  him.  Who  are  we  to  "  plead  the  baby 
act?"  -If  Dewey  captured  land  we  do  not  want  to  hold,  then  let 
go  of  it.  It  is  for  us  to  say,  not  for  him.  It  is  foolish  to  say  that 
our  victory  last  May  settled  once  for  all  our  future  as  a  world 
power.  It  is  not  thus  that  I  read  our  history.  Chance  decides 
nothing.  The  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Constitution, 
the  Emancipation  of  the  Slaves,  were  not  matters  of  chance. 
They  belong  to  the  category  of  statesmanship.  A  statesman  knows 
no  chance.  It  is  his  business  to  foresee  it  and  to  control  it. 
Chance  is  the  terror  of  despotism.  A  chance  shot  along  the  frontier 
of  Alsace,  a  chance  brawl  in  Hungary,  a  chance  word  in  Poland,  a 
chance  imbecile  in  the  seat  of  power,  may  throw  all  Europe  into  war. 
In  a  general  war  the  nations  of  Europe,  their  dynasties,  and  their 
thrones,  will  burn  like  stubble  in  a  prairie  fire.  Our  foundation  is 
less  combustible.  Our  Constitution  is  something  more  than  a  New 
Year's  resolution  to  be  broken  at  the  first  chance  temptation.  The 
Republic  is,  indeed,  in  the  gravest  peril  if  chance  and  passion  are  to  be 
factors  in  her  destiny. 

One  of  the  ablest  of  British  public  men,  one  known  to  all  of  us 
as  a  staunch  friend  of  the  United  States  through  the  Civil  War  when 

18 


our  allies  in  the  present  British  Ministry  could  not  conceal  their  hatred 
and  contempt,  writes  in  a  private  letter  these  words  to  me: 

"  I  could  not  say  this  in  my  public  writings,"  he  says,  and  so  I 
do  not  give  his  name,  *'  but  it  seems  to  me  that  expansionism  has  in 
it  a  large  element  of  sheer  vulgarity,  in  the  shape  of  a  parvenu  desire 
for  admission  into  the  imperialist  and  military  camp  of  the  old 
world." 

This  is  the  whole  story.  Our  quasi-alliance  with  Aguinaldo 
obliges  us  to  see  that  he  and  his  followers  do  not  rot  in  Spanish  pris 
ons.  Here  or  about  here  our  obligation  ends,  though  our  interest  in 
freedom  might  go  further.  "  Sheer  vulgarity  "  does  the  rest.  The 
desire  to  hold  a  new  toy,  to  enjoy  a  new  renown,  to  feel  a  new  exper 
ience,  or  the  baser  desire  to  gain  money  by  it,  is  at  the  bottom  of  our 
talk  about  the  new  destiny  of  the  American  republic  and  the  new 
obligations  which  this  destiny  entails. 

We  have  set  our  national  heart  on  the  acquisition  of   the  Philip-  i 
pines  to  give  Old  Glory  a  chance  in  a  distant  sea,  to  do  something  /•' 
unheard  of  in  our  past  history.     We  look  on  every  side  for  justifka-  j 
tion  of  this  act  and  the  varied  excuses   we    can  invent  we  call  our 
obligations.     We  have   saved  Manila  from  being  looted  by  the  bar 
barians.    This  may  be  true,  though  we  have  not  the  slightest  evidence 
that  it  was  ever  in  such  danger.     But  we   have  made  it  a  veritable 
hell   on  earth.     Its  saloons,  gaming    halls   and   dives   of  vice  have 
to-day  few  parallels  in  all  the  iniquitous  world. 

But  we  have  incurred,  some  say,  the  obligation  to  civilize  and 
christianize  the  Filipinos,  and  to  do  this  we  must  annex  them,  that 
our  missionaries  may  be  safe  in  their  work.  "  The  free  can  conquer 
but  to  save."  This  is  the  new  maxim  for  the  ensign  of  the  Republic, 
replacing  the  "consent  of  the  governed,"  and  "  government  by  the 
people,"  and  the  worn  out  phrases  of  our  periwigged  fathers. 

But  to  christianize  our  neighbors  is  no  part  of  the  business  of  our 
government.  It  is  said  by  Dr.  Worcester,  our  best  authority  on  the 
Filipinos,  that  "as  a  rule  the  grade  of  their  morality  rises  with  the 
square  of  the  distance  from  churches  and  other  civilizing  influ 
ences."  This  means  that  the  churches  are  not  keeping  up  with  our 
saloons  and  gaming  houses.  If  they  are  not  we  cannot  help  them. 
Missionary  work  of  Americans  as  against  Mohammedanism,  Catholi 
cism,  or  even  heathenism  our  government  cannot  aid.  It  is  our  boast, 
and  a  righteous  one,  that  all  religion  is  equally  respected  by  our 
State.  It  has  been  the  strength  of  our  foreign  missionaries  that  they 
never  asked  the  support  of  armies.  "The  force  of  arms,"  said 
Martin  Luther,  "must  be  kept  far  from  matters  of  the  Gospel."  The 
courage  of  devoted  men  and  women  and  the  power  of  the  Word,  such 

19 


is  the  only  force  they  demand.  When  the  flag  and  the  police  are  sent 
in  advance  of  the  Bible,  missionaries  fall  to  the  level  of  ordinary  poli 
ticians.  It  is  the  lesson  of  all  history  that  the  religious  forms  of  as 
pirations  of  any  people  should  be  respected  by  its  government.  From 
Java,  the  most  prosperous  of  Oriental  vassal  nations,  all  missionaries 
are  rigidly  excluded.  They  are  disturbers  of  industry. 

It  is  the  lesson  of  England's  experience  that  all  forms  of  govern 
ment  should  be  equally  respected.  In  no  case  has  she  changed  the 
form  however  much  she  may  have  altered  the  administration.  Suc 
cess  in  the  control  of  the  tropical  races  no  nation  has  yet  achieved, 
for  no  one  has  yet  solved  the  problem  of  securing  industry  without 
force,  of  making  money  without  some  form  of  slavery.  But  those 
nations  which  have  come  nearest  solution  have  most  respected  the 
religions  and  prejudices  and  governmental  forms  of  the  native  people. 
Individual  men  may  struggle  as  they  will  against  heathenism.  A 
government  must  recognize  religions  as  they  are. 

It  is  said  again  that  the  whole  matter  does  not  deserve  half  the 
words  given  it.  We  destroyed  the  government,  such  as  it  was,  in 
Cuba  and  Manila  ;  we  must  stay  until  we  have  repaired  the  mischief. 
When  we  have  set  things  going  again  it  will  be  time  to  decide  what  to 
do.  The  answer  to  this  is  that  it  is  not  true.  We  are  not  repairing 
the  damages  anywhere,  but  are  laying  our  plans  for  permanent  military 
occupation,  which  is  Imperialism.  Those  responsible  for  these  affairs 
have  kept  annexation  steadily  in  view.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is 
no  intention  to  withdraw  even  from  Cuba,  or  to  permit  any  form  of 
self-government  there,  until  American  influences  shall  dominate. 

It  is  not  because  the  governed  have  some  intangible  right  to  consent 
that  we  object  to  this,  but  because  the  machinery  of  democracy,  which 
is  acquiesence  in  action,  will  not  work  without  their  co-operation. 

But  we  must  take  the  Philippines,  some  say,  because  no  other 
honorable  course  lies  before  us.  Some  civilized  nation  must  own 
them  ;  Spain  is  out  of  the  question  ;  so  are  the  other  nations  of 
Europe,  while  Aguinaldo  and  the  Filipinos  themselves,  '«  big  children 
\  that  must  be  treated  like  little  ones,"  are  unworthy  of  trust  and 
incapable  of  good  government. 

But,  again,  what  guarantee  is  there  that  we  shall  give  good  govern- 
\  ment  ?  When  did  it  become  our  duty  to  see  that  anarchy  and  cor- 
\uption  are  expelled  from  semi-barbarous  regions?  When  did  we 
learn  how  to  do  it?  We  have  had  six  months  in  which  to  think 
about  it.  Who  has  ever  suggested  a  plan  ?  For  thirty  years  we  have 
misgoverned  Alaska*  with  open  eyes  and  even  now  scarcely  a  visible 

*  Last  week,  according  to  the  Springfield   Republican,  Senator   Carter  asked 
unanimous  consent  for  the  consideration  of  a  code  of  laws  for  Alaska.     "Various 

20 


sign  of  repentance.  We  are  not  sworn  to  good  government  even  in  our 
own  cities.  We  give  them  self-government  and  that  is  all.  The  people 
everywhere  make  their  own  standards.  The  standard  of  Arizona  is 
different  from  that  of  Massachusetts,  and  South  Carolina  has  another 
still.  There  is  no  good  government  in  America  except  as  the  people 
demand  it.  We  want  good  government  on  no  other  terms. 

China,  Corea,  Siam,  Turkey,  Tartary,  Arabia  and  the  peoples  of 
Asia  generally,  "  half  devil  and  half  child,"  are  none  of  them  under 
good  government.  The  rulers  of  Central  America,  of  Venezuela, 
Bolivia,  and,  worst  of  all,  the  unspeakable  Hayti  are  no  more  efficient 
or  more  virtuous  than  the  Filipinos.  As  men  we  may  care  for  these 
things  and  work  for  their  improvement.  As  a  nation  they  are  none  of 
our  business  so  long  as  their  badness  of  government  does  not  harm 
our  national  interests.  We  have  no  nearer  concern  in  the  govern 
ment  of  the  Philippines,  nor  can  we  give  their  people  a  government 
any  better  than  they  know  how  to  demand.  We  might  do  so 
possibly,  but  we  shall  not.  We  are  not  in  *•  knight-errantry  for  our 
health,"  and  we  are  in  no  mood  for  trying  fancy  experiments. 
Those  among  us  who  might  lead  child  races  to  higher  civilization  are 
not  likely  to  be  called  on  for  advice. 

Others  say  with  swelling  breasts  that  the  ringer  of  Providence 
points  the  way  for  us,  and  we  cannot  choose  but  obey.  The  God  of 
battles  has  punished  Spain  for  her  centuries  of  cruelty,  corruption, 
and  neglect,  and  we  are  but  as  the  instrument  in  His  hand. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  man  and  his  boys  who  got  their  breakfast  at 
a  tavern  where  food  was  scarce  and  bills  were  high.  As  they  left  the 
place  they  complained  loudly  of  the  bad  treatment  they  had  received. 
At  last  one  of  the  boys  spoke  up  :  "  The  Lord  has  punished  that  man. 
I  have  my  pocket  full  of  his  spoons." 


senators  objected.  Gallinger  and  Bate  thought  a  night  session  for  such  a  purpose 
a  very  bad  precedent.  Mr.  Tillman  thought  the  time  should  be  devoted  to  the 
anti-scalping  bill  and  Mr.  Chandler  was  anxious  to  discuss  a  ticket  brokerage  bill." 
There  being  no  senator  from  Alaska  to  enter  into  trade  or  combination  there  is  no 
hope  for  legislation  to  bring  order  into  the  territory. 

In  a  recent  address  Governor  Roosevelt  is  reported  as  saying: 

"  Have  you  read  in  the  papers  that  an  Alaskan  town  Wrangel)  wants  to  be 
transferred  to  Canada?  It  wants  to  get  out  from  under  our  flag  merely  because  no 
one  has  thought  it  worth  while  to  give  Alaska  good  government.  If  we  govern  the 
Philippines,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  and  Hawaii  as  we  have  governed  Alaska,  we  shall 
have  the  same  results." 

Mr.  Brady,  the  excellent  Governor  of  Alaska,  says: 

"There  are  sixty  men  in  charge  of  the  government  of  the  territory.  They 
have  no  interests  in  Alaska  except  to  grab  what  they  can  and  get  away.  They  are 
like  a  lot  of  hungry  codfish.  Seven  of  these  officials,  eleven  per  cent  of  the  entire 
government,  are  now  under  indictment  for  malfeasance  in  office." 

21 


"The  terrible  prophecy  of  Las  Casas,"  says  an  eloquent  orator, 
"  has  come  true  for  Spain.  The  countless  treasures  of  gold  from  her 
American  bondsmen  have  been  sunk  forever,  her  empire  richer  than 
Rome's  has  been  inherited  by  freemen,  her  proud  armada  has  been 
scattered,  her  arms  have  been  overwhelmed,  her  glory  has  departed. 
If  ever  retributive  justice  overtook  an  evil-doer  it  has  overtaken  and 
crushed  this  arrogant  power.  An  army  of  the  dead,  larger  by  far  than 
the  whole  Spanish  nation,  stormed  the  judgment  seat  of  God  demand 
ing  justice — stern,  retributive  justice.  God  heard  and  answered.  This 
republic  is  now  striking  the  last  blow  for  liberty  in  America,  an 
instrument  of  justice  in  the  hands  of  an  omnipotent  power.  In 
the  interest  of  civilization,  of  imperative  humanity,  we  now  go  forth 
to  the  rescue  of  the  last  victim,  strong  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
purity  of  our  purpose,  and  the  justice  of  our  cause." 

Again  let  us  say,  "  The  Lord  has  punished  this  nation.  We  have 
our  pockets  full  of  her  spoons." 

Doubtless  Spain  was  very  corrupt  and  very  weak  and  very  wicked, 
but  that  is  not  for  us  to  judge  while  we  have  our  pockets  full  of  her 
spoons. 

The  plain  fact  is  this:  the  guiding  hand  of  Providence,  in  such  con 
nection  as  this,  is  mere  figure  of  speech,  intended  for  our  own  justifi 
cation.  Doubtless  Providence  plays  its  part  in  the  affairs  of  men, 
but  not  in  such  fashion  as  this.  Providence  is  our  expression  for 
the  ultimate  inevitable  righteousness  which  rules  in  human  history. 
It  "hath  put  down  the  mighty  from  their  seats  and  hath  exalted  them 
of  low  degree ;  "  but  its  voice  is  not  the  "  sound  of  popular  clamor." 
*'  Fame's  trumpet"  does  not  set  forth  its  decrees  and  it  is  not  inter 
ested  in  increasing  volume  of  trade. 

The  war  with  Spain  was  in  no  sense  holy,  unless  we  make  it  so 
through  its  results.  Our  victories  indicate  no.  accession  of  divine 
favor.  We  succeeded  because  we  were  bigger,  richer,  and  far  more 
capable  than  our  enemy.  Our  navy  was  manned  with  trained  engi 
neers,  while  that  of  Spain  was  not.  Our  gross  wealth  made  sure  the 
final  success  of  our  army  in  spite  of  incompetence  and  favoritism 
which  has  risen  to  the  proportions  of  a  national  shame.  When  we 
have  cast  aside  all  hopes  of  booty  we  shall  be  fit  to  sit  in  judgment 
on  the  sins  of  Spain.  Till  then,  to  say  that  we  alone  are  led  by  Di 
vine  Providence  is  wanton  blasphemy.  Four  very  different  impulses 
carried  us  into  the  war;  the  feeling  of  humanity,  the  love  of  adventure, 
the  desire  for  revenge,  and  the  hope  of  political  capital.  Strength  and 
wealth  and  our  prestige  led  us  to  success.  The  decision  of  history  to 
the  righteousness  of  the  war  will  be  determined  by  the  motive  that 
finally  triumphs. 

22 


OF   THK 

TTNIVEBi 

SgLiS: 

Again,  some  say  we  went  to  war  in  the  interests  of  humanity,  civili 
zation,  and  righteousness.  In  this  end  we  have  poured  out  blood  and 
treasure.  It  is  only  fair  that  we  should  be  paid  for  our  losses.  Let  us 
fill  our  pockets  with  the  spoons.  It  ceases  to  be  a  war  for  humanity 
when  we  have  forced  a  humbled  enemy,  condemned  without  a  hearing, 
to  foot  all  the  bills. 

But  we  would  plant  the  institutions  of  freedom  in  the  midst  of  the 
Orient.  Freedom  cannot  be  confined.  Expansion  is  her  manifest  des 
tiny.  "We  are  like  the  younger  sons  of  England  who,  finding  their  own 
country  inadequate,  have  gone  forth  to  fill  the  unoccupied  places  of  the 
East,  and  now  the  time  comes  when  our  children  are  beginning  to  face 
the  conditions  that  hedged  around  our  fathers  and  made  us  turn  our 
faces  towards  the  West.  The  United  States  on  this  continent  have 
been  pretty  well  surveyed,  explored,  conquered,  and  policed.  Shall 
we  not  see  to  it  that  our  children  shall  have  as  good  a  forward  out 
look  as  we  have?  We  have  proved  our  capacity  to  expand.  We  have 
proved  our  capacity  to  compete  with  any  man.  It  were  worse  than 
folly,  yea,  criminal,  to  attempt  to  set  back  the  onward  march  of  mani 
fest  destiny." 

So  runs  the  current  of  yellow  patriotism.  But  if  the  Anglo-Saxon 
has  a  destiny  incompatible  with  morality  and  which  cannot  be  carried 
out  in  peace,  if  it  is  bound  by  no  pledges  and  must  ride  roughshod  over 
the  rights  and  wills  of  weaker  people  the  sooner  he  is  exterminated  the 
better  for  the  world.  In  like  strain  we  are  reminded  that  the  arguments 
against  expansion  to-day  were  used  to  oppose  the  Louisiana  purchase  in 
Jefferson's  time  and  the  less  glorious  acquisition  of  the  provinces  of 
conquered  Mexico.  If  expansion  to  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Washington, 
Oregon,  Colorado,  Dakota,  and  California  was  good  national  policy, 
why  not  still  further  to  the  Philippines?  But  the  difference  between 
the  one  case  and  the  others  are  many  and  self-evident.  The  Louisiana 
territory  and  the  territory  of  California  were  adjacent  to  our  States. 
They  were  in  the  temperate  zone  with  climate  in  every  way  favorable 
to  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  and  to  the  personal  activity  on  which  free 
institutions  depend.  They  were  virtually  uninhabited  districts,  being 
peopled  chiefly  by  nomad  barbarians  who  made  no  use  of  the  land, 
and  whose  rights  the  Anglo-Saxon  has  never  cared  to  consider.  The 
first  governments  were  established  by  the  free  men  who  entered 
them.  Finally  the  growth  of  railroads  and  the  telegraph  brought 
this  vast  region  almost  from  the  first  into  the  closest  touch  with  the 
East  and  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  If  it  were  not  for  the  develop 
ment  of  transportation,  unforeseen  by  the  fathers,  the  arguments  they 
used  against  expansionism  would  have  remained  valid  even  as  against 
the  Louisiana  purchase. 


It  is  said  that  "Jefferson  was  a  rank  expansionist."  But  there  is 
no  record  that  he  favored  expansion  for  bigness'  sake,  the  seizure  or 
purchase  of  all  sorts  of  land  and  all  sorts  of  inhabitants  regardless 
of  conditions,  regardless  of  rights,  and  regardless  of  the  interests  of 
our  own  people. 

The  Philippines  are  not  contiguous  to  any  land  of  freedom. 
They  lie  in  the  heart  of  that  region  which  Ambrose  Bierce  calls 
"the  horrid  zone;  Nature's  asylum  for  degenerates.?'  They  are 
already  densely  populated — more  densely  than  even  the  oldest  of  the 
United  States.  Their  population  cannot  be  exterminated  on  the  one 
hand,  nor  made  economically  potent  on  the  other,  except  through 
slavery.  Finally  the  conditions  of  life  are  such  as  to  forbid  Anglo- 
Saxon  colonization.  Among  hundreds  of  colonial  experiments  in 
Brazil,  in  India,  in  Africa,  in  China,  there  is  not  to-day  such  a  thing 
as  a  self-supporting  European  colony  in  the  tropics.  White  men  live 
through  officialism  alone.  There  are  military  posts,  so  placed  as  to 
appropriate  the  land  and  enslave  the  people,  but  there  is  not  one 
self-dependent,  self-respecting  European  or  American  settlement. 

Individual  exceptions  and  special  cases  to  the  contrary,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  or  any  other  civilized  race  degenerates  in  the  tropics 
mentally,  morally,  physically.  This  statement  has  been  lately  denied 
in  some  quarters.  As  opposed  to  it  has  been  urged  the  fact  that 
Thackeray  and  Kipling,  the  most  virile  of  British  men  of  letters,  were 
born  in  India,  and  many  other  distinguished  men  have  first  seen  the 
light  in  tropical  Africa  or  Polynesia.  Several  Stanford  athletes  are 
natives  of  Hawaii,  and  Cuba  has  furnished  her  full  share  of  the  men 
of  science  of  the  blood  of  Spain.  But  this  argument  indicates  a 
confusion  of  ideas.  Degeneration  may  be  any  one  of  three  different 
kinds;  race  decline,  personal  degeneration,  and  social  decay.  " 

The  essential  of  race  degeneration  is  the  continuous  lowering  of 
the  mental  or  physical  powers  of  each  successive  generation.  Such  a 
process  is  very  slow,  requiring  centuries  before  it  shows  itself.  It 
finds  its  cause  in  unwholesome  conditions  which  destroy  first  the 
bravest,  strongest,  and  most  active,  leaving  the  feeble,  indolent,  and 
cowardly  to  perpetuate  the  species.  Military  selection,  or  the  seizure 
of  the  strong  to  replenish  the  armies,  has  produced  race  degeneration 
in  many  parts  of  Europe.  Such  degeneration  has  been  the  curse  of 
Italy  and  parts  of  France  and  Switzerland  and  doubtless  of  Spain 
and  Germany  also.  The  dull  sodden  malarial  heat  of  the  tropics 
spares  the  indolent  longest.  In  the  Song  of  the  Plague,  written  by 
some  unknown  British  soldier,  we  find  these  words  as  to  India: 

24 


"  Cut  off  from  the  land  that  bore  us 
Betrayed  by  the  land  we  find 
When  the  brightest  are  gone  before  ns 
And  the  dullest  are  left  behind." 

This  is  the  beginning  of  race  degeneration.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
in  the  tropics  deteriorates  through  the  survival  of  the  indolent  and 
the  loss  of  fecundity ;  but  this  is  met  or  concealed  by  a  number  of 
other  tendencies  and  is  not  soon  apparent.  The  birth  of  a  Kipling, 
a  Thackeray,  or  a  Dole  could  not  in  any  way  affect  the  argument. 
The  British  child  born  in  India  to-day  must  be  reared  in  England ; 
and  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  not  all  the  regions  south  of  the 
Tropic  of  Cancer  are  to  be  classed  as  tropical ;  most  of  Mexico, 
much  of  India,  and  the  whole  Andean  region  belong  to  the  temperate 
zone.  The  equable  climate  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands  is  not  in  any 
iwoper  sense  torrid. 

In  the  tropics  the  tendency  to  personal  decay  is  more  directly 
evident.  The  swarm  of  malarial  organisms,  the  loss  of  social  restric 
tions,  the  reduced  value  of  life,  the  lack  of  moral  standards,  all  tend  to 
promote  individual  laxity  and  recklessness.  ' '  Where  there  are  no  Ten 
Commandments,"  and  "  the  best  is  as  the  worst,"  there,  life  is  held 
cheap  and  men  grow  careless.  Kipling's  fable  of  "  Duncan  Parenness" 
tells  the  story  of  personal  degeneration,  and  this  case  is  typical  of  thou 
sands  and  thousands.  Vice  and  dissipation  are  confined  to  no  zone, 
but  in  the  tropics  few  men  of  northern  blood  can  escape  them. 

With  individual  deterioration  goes  social  decay.  Man  becomes 
less  careful  of  his  dress,  his  social  observances,  his  duties  to  others. 
Woman  loses  her  regard  for  conventionalities,  for  her  reputation,  and 
for  her  character.  The  little  efforts  that  hold  society  together  are 
abandoned  one  by  one.  The  spread  of  the  "Mother  Hubbard," 
crowding  out  more  elaborate  forms  of  dress,  indicates  a  general 
failure  of  social  conventionalities.  The  decay  of  society  reacts  on 
the  individual.  Where  it  is  too  warm  or  too  malarial  to  be  conven 
tional,  it  is  too  much  trouble  to  be  decent.  Without  going  into  causes, 
it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  Anglo-Saxon  colonies  of  self  respecting, 
self-governing  men  and  women  are  practically  confined  to  the 
temperate  regions. 

The  annexation  of  the  Philippines  is,  therefore,  not  a  movement 
of  expansion.  We  cannot  expand  into  space  already  full.  ^Our 
nation  cannot  expand  where  freedom  cannot  go.  Neither  the  people 
nor  the  institutions  of  the  United  States  can  ever  occupy  the  Philip 
pines.  The  American  home  cannot  endure  there,  the  town-meeting 
cannot  exist.  There  is  no  room  for  free  laborers,  no  welcome  for  them, 
and  no  pay.  The  sole  opening  for  Americans  in  any  event  will  be  as 

25 


corporations  or  agents  of  corporations,  as  Government  officials  or  as 
members  of  some  profession  requiring  higher  than  native  fitness. 
There  is  no  chance  for  the  American  workman,  but  for  syndi- 
cates  it  offers  great  opportunities.  Yes,  for  the  syndicates  who  handle 
politics  as  an  incident  in  business.  But  the  more  syndicates  we  can 
induce  to  leave  the  shelter  of  our  flag,  the  better  for  our  people. 
Let  them  take  their  chances  without  our  help. 

If  it  were  possible  to  exterminate  the  Filipinos  as  we  have 
destroyed  the  Indians,  replacing  their  institutions  and  their  people  by 
ours,  the  political  objections  to  annexation  would,  in  the  main,  disap 
pear  whatever  might  be  said  of  the  moral  ones. 

For  our  treatment  of  the  Indian,  there  is,  in  general,  no  moral 
justification.  There  is  a  good  political  excuse  in  this — that  we  could 
and  did  use  their  land  in  a  better  way  than  was  possible  to  them.  We 
have  no  such  excuse  in  Luzon;  we  cannot  use  the  land  except  as 
we  use  the  lives  of  the  people. 

We  cannot  plant  free  institutions  in  the  Orient  because  once 
planted  they  will  not  grow  ;  if  they  grow  they  will  not  be  free.  We 
cannot  exterminate  these  people,  and  if  we  did  we  could  not  use  their 
land  for  our  own  people  ;  we  could  only  fill  it  with  Asiatic  colonists, 
Malay,  Chinese,  or  Japanese,  more  of  the  same  kind,  not  of  our  kind. 
"  Any  attempt  to  govern  the  tropical  possessions  of  the  United  States 
on  democratic  principles,"  says  Mr.  W.  Alleyne  Ireland,  one  of  our 
wisest  authorities,  "  is  doomed  to  certain  failure.  It  has  been  already 
shown  that  without  forced  labor,  or  at  least  some  form  of  indentured 
labor,  large  industries  cannot  be  developed  in  tropical  colonies." 
Such  forced  labor  can  be  controlled  only  by  the  compulsion  of  the 
Government  as  in  Java,  or  by  the  activity  of  great  corporations  as  in 
Hawaii  and  Trinidad. 

"  It  is  thought  by  many,"  says  Mr.  Ireland,  "that  though  it  may 
be  unadvisable  to  grant  the  (tropical)  colonies  representative  govern 
ment  at  present,  the  time  will  soon  come  when  the  people  will  show 
themselves  capable  of  self-government.  Judging  from  past  experience 
there  would  seem  to  be  little  hope  that  these  pleasant  anticipations 
will  ever  be  realized.  We  look  in  vain  fora  single  instance  within 
the  tropics  of  a  really  well-governed  country.*' 

The  notion  that  in  these  fertile  Islands  our  surplus  working  men 
shall  find  homes  is  the  height  of  absurdity.  Our  labor  leaders  under 
stand  this  well  enough,  and  for  once  they  stand  together  on  the  side  of 
common  sense.  Scarcely  any  part  of  the  United  States  is  so  crowded 
with  people  as  Luzon  or  Porto  Rico  ;  in  no  part  is  the  demand  for 
labor  less  or  its  rewards  so  meager.  Ten  cents  a  day  is  not  a  free 
man's  scale  of  wages  ;  and  no  change  of  government  can  materially 

26 


alter  this  relation.  In  the  tropics  the  conditions  of  subsistence  are  so 
easy  and  the  incentives  to  industry  so  slight  that  all  races  exposed  to 
relaxing  influences  become  pauperized.  It  is  the  free  lunch  system 
on  a  boundless  scale,  the  environment  of  Nature  too  generous  to  be 
just,  too  kind  to  be  exacting. 

For  the  control  of  dependent  nations  and  slave  races  the  fair 
sounding  name  of  Imperialism  has  lately  come  into  use.  It  has  been 
hailed  with  joy  on  the  one  hand  for  it  is  associated  with  armorial 
bearings  and  more  than  royal  pomp  and  splendor.  It  has  been  made 
a  term  of  reproach  on  the  other,  and  our  newspaper  politicians  now 
hasten  to  declare  that  they  favor  expansion  only  when  it  has  no  taint  of 
Imperialism.  But  to  our  British  friends  nothing  could  be  more 
ridiculous.  You  must  have  an  iron  hand  or  you  get  no  profits.  To 
cast  aside  Imperialism  is  to  cast  away  the  sole  method  by  which 
tropical  colonies  have  ever  been  made  profitable  to  commerce  or 
tolerable  in  politics.  On  the  other  hand  these  same  people  tell  us 
that  they  have  not  the  slightest  thought  of  making  States  of  Cuba 
or  the  Philippines,  or  of  admitting  the  Filipinos  to  citizenship.  But 
if  the  Filipino  is  not  a  citizen  of  his  own  land,  who  is? 

We  are  advised  on  good  patrician  authority  that  all  is  well,  what 
ever  we  do,  if  we  avoid  the  fatal  mistake  of  admitting  the  brown 
races  to  political  equality — of  letting  them  govern  us.  We  must  rule 
them  for  their  own  good — -never  for  our  advantage.  In  other  words, 
lead  or  drive  the  inferior  man  along,  but  never  recognize  his  will, 
his  manhood,  his  equality;  never  let  him  count  one  when  he  is 
measured  against  you. 

These  maxims  should  be  familiar;  they  are  the  philosophy  of 
slavery,  and  they  only  lack  the  claim  of  the  right  to  buy  and  sell  the 
bodies  and  souls  of  men.  Our  purchase  of  the  Filipinos  from  Spain, 
and  our  subsequent  treatment  of  the  resultant  slave  insurrection  sup 
plies  the  missing  element. 

One  plan  or  the  other  we  must  adopt;  either  self-rule  or 
Imperialism;  there  is  no  middle  course,  and  both  under  present 
conditions  are  virtually  impossible.  Let  the  friends  of  annexation 
develop  some  plan  of  government,  any  plan  whatever,  and  its  folly 
and  ineffectiveness  will  speedily  appear.  To  go  ahead  without  a  plan 
means  certain  disaster,  and  that  very  soon;  whatever  we  do  or  do 
not  do,  there  is  no  time  to  lose. 

Conquest  of  the  Orient  is  not  expansion,  for  there  is  no  room  for 
free  manhood  to  grow  there.  It  is  useless  to  disclaim  Imperialism 
when  we  are  red-handed  in  the  very  act.  Annexation  without  Imperial 
ism  is  sheer  anarchy.  Annexation  with  Imperialism  may  be  much  worse, 
for  so  far  as  it  goes  it  means  the  abandonment  of  democracy.  The  Union 

27 


cannot  endure  "  half  slave,  half  free,"  half  republic,  half  empire. 
We  may  make  vassal  tribes  of  the  Filipinos,  but  never  free  States  im 
the  sense  in  which  the  name  "State"  applies  to  Maine,  Iowa,  or 
California.  The  Philippines  can  have  no  part  in  the  Federal  Union. 
Their  self-government  must  be  of  a  wholly  different  kind,  the  out 
growth  of  their  own  needs  and  dispositions.  What  they  need  is  not 
our  freedom,  but  some  form  of  paternal  despotism  or  monarchy  of 
their  own  choosing  which  shall  command  their  loyalty  an-d  yet  keep 
them  in  peace. 

"  It  is  no  man's  duty  to  govern  any  other  man."  Still  less  is  it 
a  nation's  duty  to  govern  another  nation.  All  that  the  weak  nations 
ask  of  the  strong  is:  "  Stand  out  of  my  sunlight  and  let  me  alone." 

We  have  never  adopted  the  theory  that  each  small  nation  must 
be  tributary  to  some  other,  and  that  each  nation  of  the  lazy  tropics 
must  have  slave  drivers  from  Europe  to  make  its  people  work. 

Imperialism  means  such  a  control  of  tropical  lands  that  they  may 
be  economically  productive  or  that  their  doors  may  be  thrown  open  to 
commerce.  It  is  a  definite  business,  difficult  and  costly,  with  few 
rewards  and  many  dangers.  It  is  fairly  well  understood  by  some  of 
those  engaged  in  it.  It  has  been  successfully  conducted  under  cer 
tain  very  narrow  lines  by  Great  Britain  and  by  Holland,  although 
both  countries  have  the  record  of  many  failures  before  they  learned 
the  art.  Germany  has  tried  it  for  a  little  while,  as  have  also  Japan 
and  Belgium,  none  of  these  with  successful  results.  Spain  is  out  of 
the  business  in  final  bankruptcy  and  her  assets  are  in  our  hands  for 
final  disposition.  France  has  made  failures  only,  and  this  because 
she  has  held  colonies  for  her  own  ends,  regardless  of  their  own 
interests. 

"  No  sooner,"  says  Lionel  Decle,  "  was  the  island  (of  Madagas 
car)  in  the  hands  of  these  (French  colonial  leaders)  than  they  closed 
it  to  all  foreign  prospectors.  They  imposed  prohibitive  duties  on  all 
foreign  goods,  keeping  the  country  for  the  French  colonists  that  never 
came,  and  that  never  will  come." 

Control  of  the  tropics  has  none  of  the  glories  we  rulgarly 
associate  with  imperial  sway.  Its  details  are  trivial,  paltry  and 
exasperating  in  the  last  degree.  The  more  successful  as  to  money, 
the  more  offensive  to  freedom.  In  some  regions,  as  Guiana,  no 
nation  has  yet  accomplished  anything  either  in  bringing  civiliza 
tion  or  in  making  money,  while  in  Java  and  Trinidad  the  results, 
however  great,  have  been  financial  or  commercial  only.  Every 
dollar  made  in  Java  has  been  blood  money,  red  with  the  blood 
of  Dutch  soldiers  on  the  one  side  and  with  that  of  the  Malay  peopk 

28 


on  the  other.     In  Jamaica,  the  abolition  of  slavery  marked  the  end 
of  industrial  prosperity. 

The  voice  of  common  British  opinion  is  that  it  is  our  turn  to 
take  a  hand  in  the  control  of  the  tropics.  This  idea  is  assumed  in 
Kipling's  appeal,  "Take  Up  the  White  Man's  Burden,"  and  the  real 
force  of  his  verse  is  a  warning  that  there  is  no  easy  way  to  success.  The 
motive  is  not  glory,  but  the  profit  to  the  world.  It  is  our  duty,  with 
the  others,  to  share  the  burden  of  tropical  control  that  we  may  increase 
the  wealth  and  commerce  of  the  nations.  There  is  some  reason  in 
this  appeal.  It  is  a  business  we  cannot  wholly  shirk.  I  maintain, 
however,  that  so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  this  is  a  matter  purely  for 
individual  enterprise.  The  American  merchant,  missionary,  and 
miner  have  taken  up  the  white  man's  burden  cheerfully;  the  Ameri 
can  Government  cannot. 

"A  certain  class  of  mind,"  says  Mr.  Charles  T.  Lummis,  "froths, 
at  the  bare  suggestion  that  the  United  States  cannot  'do  anything 
any  other  nation  can.'     Well,  it  cannot — and  remain  United  States.       / 
A  gentleman  has  all  the  organs  of  a  blackguard.     But  a  gentleman   / 
cannot  lie,  steal,  bully  nor  ravish.     A  republic  cannot  be  a  despot-,' 
ism.     The  Almighty  himself  cannot  make  two  mountains  without  a N 
valley  between  them.     The  one  would  cease  to  be  a  republic;  the 
other  would  cease  to  be  two  mountains.    It  is  no  more  to  the  reproach 
of  the  United  States  that  it  cannot  be  a  tyrant  than  to  God's  shame 
that  He  cannot  be  a  fool." 

I  notice  that  not  one  of  our  tried  friends  in  England,  men  like 
Bryce,  Morley,  and  Goldwin  Smith,  who  understand  our  spirit  and 
our  laws,  urge  the  holding  of  the  Philippines.  In  England,  as  in 
America,  the  call  to  hold  the  Philippines  is  mainly  that  of  the  jingo 
and  the  politician,  the  reckless  and  conscienceless  elements  in  the 
public  life  of  each  nation  joining  hands  with  each  other. 

The  white  man's  burden,  in  the  British  sense,  is  to  force  the 
black  man  to  support  himself  and  the  white  man,  too.  This  is  the 
meaning  of  "control  of  the  tropics."  The  black  man  cannot  be 
exterminated  at  home  as  the  red  man  can;  therefore,  let  us  make  him 
carry  double.  The  world  needs  all  that  we  can  get  out  of  him.  This 
may  be  all  the  better  for  the  black  man  in  need  of  exercise,  but 
it  is  the  old  spirit  of  slavery,  and  its  disguise  is  the  thinnest. 

Our  Monroe  Doctrine  pledges  us  to  a  national  interest  in  the 
tropics  of  the  New  World.  This  is  because  throughout  the  New 
World  American  citizens  have  interests  which  our  flag  must  protect. 
In  matters  of  legitimate  interest  no  nation  has  been  less  isolated  than 
America;  but  our  influence  goes  abroad  without  our  armies.  Force 
of  brains  is  greater  than  force  of  arms,  more  worthy  and  more  lasting.  r<  * ! 


Of  all  the  recent  phases  of  American  expansion  the  most  important 
and  most  honorable  is  that  which  is  called  the  "  peaceful  conquest  of 
Mexico."  We  hear  little  of  it  because  it  sounds  no  trumpets  and 
vaunts  not  itself.  The  present  stability  of  Mexico  is  largely  due  to 
American  influences,  Every  year  American  intelligence  and  Ameri 
can  capital  find  better  and  broader  openings  there.  In  time,  Mexico 
shall  become  a  republic  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  side  by  side  in 
the  friendliest  relation  with  her  sister  republic  of  broader  civilization. 
It  is  not  necessary  that  the  same  flag  should  float  over  both.  If  one 
be  red,  white,  and  blue,  let  the  other  be  green,  white,  and  red — what 
matter?  The  development  of  Mexico,  the  "  awakening  of  a  nation," 
is  thus  a  legitimate  form  of  expansion.  It  is  not  a  widening  of 
governmental  responsibility,  but  a  widening  of  American  influence  and 
an  extension  of  republican  ideas.  The  next  century  will  see  Mexico 
an  American  instead  of  a  Spanish  republic,  and  this  without  war, 
conquest,  or  intrigue. 

The  purpose  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  is  not  to  keep  the  European 
flag  from  America.  Its  function  is  to  prevent  the  extension  here  of 
European  colonial  methods,  the  domination  of  weak  races  by  strong, 
of  one  race  for  the  good  of  another,  of  the  principle  of  inequality  of 
right  which  underlies  slavery. 

The  spread  of  law  and  order,  respect  for  manhood,  of  industrial 
wisdom  and  commercial  integrity,  this  is  the  true  "  white  man's 
burden,"  not  the  conquest  and  enslavement  of  men  of  other  races. 
Expansion  is  most  honorable  and  worthy  if  only  that  which  is  worthy 
and  honorable  is  allowed  to  expand.  The  love  of  adventure,  a 
precious  heritage  of  our  race,  may  find  its  play  under  any  flag  if  it 
cannot  honorably  take  our  own  to  shelter  it. 

The  world  of  action  is  just  as  wide  to-day  as  it  ever  was,  and  if 
the  red,  white,  and  blue  floated  over  every  foot  of  it,  it  would  be  no 
wider. 

If  after  our  conquest  of  Mexico,  while  our  flag  floated  over  Chapul- 
tepec,  we  had  never  hauled  it  down  but  had  seized  the  whole  land, 
we  should  have  gained  nothing  for  civilization.  The  splendid  natural 
development  of  the  country  by  which,  in  Diaz's  own  words,  it  has 
become  "the  germ  of  a  great  nation,"  would  have  been  impossible 
under  our  forms,  as  under  the  imperial  forms  of  Napoleon  and  Maxi 
milian.  The  modern  growth  of  Japan  would  never  have  taken 
place  had  she,  like  India,  been  numbered  with  England's  vassals. 
A  nation  must  develop  from  within  by  natural  processes  if  it  is  to 
become  great  and  permanent. 

"The  silent,  sullen  peoples,  'half  devil  and  half  child,'  "  shall 
"weigh  us  and  our  God,"  not  by  our  force  of  arms  nor  by  our 

30 


accuracy  of  aim,  but  by  our  loyalty  to  the   sense  of  justice   which 
exists  even  under  a  dusky  skin. 

But  some  urge  that  we  must  hold  far-off  colonies,  the  farther  the 
better,  for  the  sake  of  our  own  greatness.  Great  Britain  is  built  up 
by  her  colonies.  "What  does  he  know  of  England,  who  only  England 

knows?" 

"Just  pride  is  no  mean  factor  in  the  state, 
The  sense  of  greatness  makes  a  people  great." 

The  grandeur  of  Rome  lay  in  her  colonies,  and  in  her  far  and 
wide  extension  must  be  the  greatness  of  the  United  States. 

But  the  decline  of  Rome  dates  from  the  same  far  and  wide 
extension.  Extension  for  extension's  sake  is  a  relic  of  barbarous  times. 
An  army  in  civilization  must  exist  for  peace  not  for  war,  and  it  should 
be  as  small  as  it  can  safely  be  made.  A  standing  army  means  waste, 
oppression,  and  moral  decay.  Carlyle  once  said  something  like  this, 
"It  is  not  your  democracy  or  any  other  'ocracy  that  keeps  your  people 
contented.  It  is  the  fact  that  you  have  very  much  land  and  very  few 
people."  But  this  is  not  half  the  truth.  The  main  reason  of  our 
prosperity  is  our  freedom  from  war.  Our  farmer  carries  no  soldier  on 
his  l?ack.  We  fear  no  foreign  invader  because  we  invite  none.  Were 
the  people  of  the  continent  of  Europe  once  freed  from  the  cost  of 
militarism,  their  industrial  progress  would  be  the  wonder  of  the  ages. 
As  it  is  they  are  ground  down  by  worse  than  medieval  taxation.  A 
French  cartoon  represents  the  farmer  of  1780  with  a  feudal  lord  on 
his  back.  The  French  farmer  of  1900  is  figured  as  bearing  a  soldier, 
then  a  politician,  and  on  the  back  of  these  a  money-lender.  Without 
these,  industry  would  buy  prosperity  and  prosperity  contentment;  with 
contentment  would  rise  new  hope.  The  hopelessness  of  militarism 
is  the  basis  of  European  pessimism  ;  men  see  no  end  to  the  piling  up 
of  engines*  of  death.  Were  the  continent  of  Europe  freed  from 
killing  taxation,  England  could  no  longer  hold  her  primacy  in  trade. 
War  has  destroyed  the  life  of  her  rivals.  Could  bankrupt  Italy  dis 
band  her  armies  and  sink  her  worthless  navies  the  glories  of  the 
golden  age  would  come  again.  Could  France  cease  to  be  militant 
she  would  no  longer  be  decadent.  If  politics  in  the  army  is  fatal  to 
military  power  the  army  in  politics  is  fatal  to  the  State.  No  nation 


*  "  The  forces  of  darkness,"  says  Dr.  Edward  Alsworth  Ross,  "are  still 
strong  and  it  seems  as  if  the  middle  ages  would  swallow  up  everything  won  by 
modern  struggles.  It  is  true  that  many  alarms  have  proved  false,  but  it  is  the  steady 
strain  that  tells  on  the  mood.  It  is  pathetic  to  see  on  the  Continent  how  men  fear  to 
face  the  future.  No  one  has  the  heart  to  probe  the  next  decade  The  people  throw 
themselves  into  the  pleasure  of  the  moment  with  the  desperation  of  doomed  men  who 
hear  the  ring  of  the  hammer  on  the  scaffold." 

31 


can  grow  in  strength  when  its  bravest  and  best  are  each  year  devoured 
by  the  army.  This  has  gone  on  in  southern  Europe  for  a  thousand 
years.  It  is  the  chief  cause  of  the  decline  of  the  Latin  nations. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  military  selection  is  the  most  insidious  foe 
to  race  development.  The  destruction  of  the  brave  in  the  Roman 
wars  finally,  according  to  Otto  Sech,  left  the  Romans  a  race  of 
"congenital  cowards."  In  proportion  as  a  nation  succeeds  in  war, 
it  must  lose  its  possibility  of  future  success  in  war  or  peace.  The 
greatest  loss  to  America  in  her  Civil  War  rests  in  the  fact  that  a 
million  of  her  strongest,  bravest,  most  devoted  men  have  left  no 
descendants.  Such  loss  has  gone  on  in  Europe  since  war  began.  If  we 
cannot  stop  fighting,  civilization  will  have  nothing  left  worth  fight 
ing  for. 

The  terrible  wastes  of  war  are  recognized  by  Great  Britain.  These 
she  has  tried  to  minimize  by  letting  alone  everything  which  does  not 
relate  to  commerce.  She  has  ceased  to  hope  for  the  impossible  and 
has  come  down  to  business  principles.  The  British  Empire  is  a  huge 
commercial  trust.  England  has  no  illusions.  She  "  neither  fears  nor 
admires  any  nation  under  heaven."  She  never  fights  save  when  she  is 
sure  to  win  and  to  throw  the  costs  on  her  opponent.  She  has  secured 
all  points  of  real  commercial  advantage  and  is  making  the  most  of  the 
ignorance  and  folly  of  those  who  strive  to  emulate  her. 

Great  Britain  expands  where  order  and  trade  extend.  Our  expan 
sion  demands  one  thing  more,  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law. 
All  expansion  of  our  boundaries  brought  about  by  honorable  means 
and  carrying  equal  justice  to  all  men,  I,  for  one,  earnestly  favor. 
To  that  limit,  and  that  only,  I  write  myself  down  as  a  *'  rank  expan 
sionist."  I  see  no  honor  in  our  seizure  of  the  Philippines,  nor 
prospect  of  justice  in  our  ultimate  rule. 

Our  British  friends  speak  of  the  smoothness  of  their  colonial 
methods,  especially  in  the  Crown  colonies,  which  Parliament  cannot 
touch.  Everything  runs  as  though  newly  oiled  and  the  British  public 
hears  nothing  of  it.  Exactly  so.  It  is  none  of  the  public's  business, 
and  the  less  the  public  has  to  say  the  less  embarrassment  from  its  igno 
rant  meddling.  The  Colonial  Bureau*  belongs  to  the  Crown,  not  to 
the  people.  The  waste  and  crime  and  bloodshed  do  not  rest  on  their 
heads.  But  we  are  not  ready  for  that  kind  of  adjustment.  Our  Ex 
ecutive  is  a  creature  of  the  public.  We  have  no  governmental  affairs 
which  are  sacred  from  the  eyes  or  the  hand  of  the  people.  "  Govern- 

*  In  the  journals,  to-day,  I  see  a  record  of  a  question  addressed  in  Parliament  to 
the  British  Minister  of  Finance.  "  This  is  the  question  of  government  with  govern 
ment,"  said  he,  in  refusing  to  answer.  In  other  words,  imperial  affairs  in  England 
are  none  of  the  people's  business.  If  they  were,  there  would  be  fewer  of  them. 

82 


ment  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  people  "  implies  that  the 
people  are  to  be  interested  in  all  its  details;  every  one  to  the  least  and 
the  greatest,  even  at  the  risk  of  destroying  its  smoothness  of  opera 
tion.  Hence,  colonial  rule  as  undertaken  by  us  must  be  marred  by 
vacillation,  ignorance,  incompetence,  parsimony,  and  neglect.  All 
these  defects  appear  in  our  foreign  relations  as  well.  For  the  reason 
of  the  greater  intelligence  of  our  people  in  public  affairs,  our  gov 
ernment  will  enter  on  the  control  of  the  tropics  with  a  great  handicap. 
The  people  want  to  know  all  about  it.  The  Administration  must 
keep  open  books  and  justify  itself  at  every  step.  This  will  act 
against  its  highest  efficiency.  The  forms  of  self-government  are  - 
not  adapted  to  the  government  of  others.  The  very  strength  of 
the  Republic  unfits  it  for  complicated  tasks,  because  its  power  can  be 
brought  at  once  into  effect  only  as  the  people  understand  its  purposes. 
Popular  government  and  good  government  are  two  very  different 
things.  Often  they  are  for  generations  not  on  speaking  terms  with 
each  other. 

The  advantages  of  sound  nationality  over  strong  government  were 
the  subject  of  the  fullest  discussion  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  feeble 
rule  of  democracy  is  the  strongest  of  all  governments  when  it  has  the 
force  of  the  popular  will  behind  it;  when  this  fails  it  is  paralyzed 
as  all  government  should  be.  A  monarchy  is  more  effective  in  foreign 
affairs  and  calls  out  better  service  than  democracy.  If  that  were  all 
we  might  revert  to  monarchy  and  close  the  discussion.  But  that  is 
not  all,  and  every  move  toward  centralization  costs  on  the  other  side. 
The  essential  fact  of  monarchy  is  not  the  presence  of  the  king,  but 
the  absence  of  the  people  in  all  large  transactions. 

This  subject  has  been  ably  discussed  by  Goldwin  Smith,  who 
calls  special  attention  to  our  want  of  governmental  apparatus  for  the  t 
control  of  dependencies.  That  we  cannot  have  such  apparatus  most 
other  British  writers  have  failed  to  note.  Imperialism  demands  the 
powers  of  an  emperor.  "  The  British  Crown,  for  the  government  of 
the  Indian  Empire,  has  an  imperial  service  attached  to  it  as  a  mon 
archy,  and  separate  from  the  services  which  are  under  the  immediate 
control  of  Parliament.  British  India,  in  fact,  is  an  empire  by  itself; 
governed  by  a  Viceroy  who  is  a  delegate  of  the  Crown,  exempt  as  a 
rule  from  the  influence  of  home  politics  and  reciprocally  exercising 
little  influence  over  them.  Before  the  Mutiny,  which  broke  up  the 
army  of  the  East  India  Company,  India  was  still  the  dominion  of 
that  Company  ;  and  the  transfer  of  it  to  the  Crown,  though  inevitable, 
was  not  unaccompanied  by  serious  misgiving  as  to  the  political 
consequences  which  might  follow.  Even  for  the  government  of  other 
dependencies  Great  Britain  has  men  like  the  late  Lord  Elgin, 


detached  from  home  parties  and  devoted  to  the  Imperial  Service.  In 
her  dependencies  Great  Britain  is,  in  fact,  still  a  monarchy  though 
at  home  she  has  become  practically  a  republic.  In  the  case  of  the 
United  States  it  would  seem  hardly  possible  to  keep  the  Imperial 
Service  free  from  political  influence,  or,  reciprocally,  to  prevent  the 
influence  of  the  empire  on  politics  at  home.  Imperial  appointments 
would  almost  inevitably  be  treated  as  diplomatic  appointments  are 
treated  now." 

"  In  what,  after  all,"  continues  Goldwin  Smith,  "  does  the  profit 
or  bliss  of  imperial  sway  consist?  The  final  blow  has  just  been  dealt 
to  the  miserable  and  helpless  remnant  of  that  empire  on  which,  in 
the  day  of  its  grandeur,  the  sun  was  said  never  to  set,  and  to  which 
Spanish  pride  has  always  desperately  clung.  It  may  safely  be  said 
that  not  the  expulsion  of  Moriscos  or  Jews,  nor  even  the  despotism 
of  the  Inquisition,  did  so  much  to  ruin  Spain  as  the  imperial 
ambition  which  perverted  the  energies  of  her  people,  turning  them 
from  domestic  industry  and  improvement  to  rapacious  aggrandizement 
abroad.  The  political  and  religious  tyranny  was,  in  fact,  largely  the 
consequence  of  the  imperial  position  of  the  monarchy,  which,  by  the 
enormous  extent  of  its  dominions  and  its  uncontrolled  sources  of 
revenue,  was  lifted  above  the  nation." 

In  the  conduct  of  the  war  and  the  peace  negotiations  which 
followed  it  we  have  examples  of  the  conditions  of  colonial  rule.  At 
no  step  since  the  beginning  has  the  American  people  been  consulted. 
At  no  point  has  consultation  been  possible.  In  managing  affairs  like 
this  there  can  be  no  divided  councils.  The  responsible  head  must 
rule,  and  it  matters  not  a  straw  what  is  the  wish  of  the  people  who 
foot  the  bills.  The  only  check  on  the  Executive  is  the  certainty  that 
the  people  will  have  the  last  word.  What  you  think  or  I  think  or 
the  people  think  of  the  whole  business  cuts  no  figure  whatever  in 
the  progress  of  events,  because  our  opinion  can  at  no  time  be  asked. 
After  all,  we  are  not  so  much  worried  because  we  have  not  asked  the 
consent  of  the  people  of  the  Philippines.  It  is  because  the  American 
people  have  not  been  consulted.  In  a  matter  most  vital  to  the  life  of 
the  nation  they  are  represented  only  by  the  rabble  of  the  streets. 
When  their  consent  should  be  asked  they  are  told  that  it  is  too  late  to 
say,  No! 

But  there  are  many  wise  economists  who  would  make  permanent 
just  this  condition  of  affairs.  The  certainty  that  success  in  colonial 
matters  would  take  them  absolutely  out  of  the  hands  of  the  people  is 
their  argument  for  imperial  expansion  as  opposed  to  democracy. 

Through  concentration  of  power  in  the  Executive  we  may  be 
able  to  make  of  Havana  and  Manila  clean  and  orderly  cities.  Shall 

34 


we  not  by  similar  means  sooner  or  later  purify  San  Francisco  and 
New  York  ?  If  martial  law  is  good  for  Luzon  or  for  Santiago,  why  not 
for  Wilmington,  or  Virden,  or  even  for  Boston? 

If  military  methods  will  clean  up  Havana  and  Santiago,  why  not  use 
them  for  the  slums  of  all  cities  ?  If  it  is  our  "  white  man's  burden  " 
to  make  the  black  man  work  in  the  tropics,  why  not  make  white  men 
work  outside  of  the  tropics  ?  If  we  furnish  public  employment  in  the 
tropics,  forcing  the  unemployed  to  accept  it,  why  not  do  the  same 
with  the  unemployed  everywhere  ?  Why  not  make  slaves  of  all  who 
fail  to  carry  the  black  man's  burden  of  toil  ? 

To  be  good,  it  is  argued,  government  must  first  be  strong,  and 
the  difficulties  before  us  will  demand  and  at  last  secure  the  strong 
hand. 

Impressed  by  the  weakness  and  corruption  of  popular  govern 
ment  these  economists  wish,  at  any  cost,  to  limit  it.  To  decide  by 
popular  vote  scientific  questions  like  the  basis  of  coinage,  the  nature 
of  the  tariff,  the  control  of  corporations,  is  to  dispose  of  them  in  the 
most  unscientific  way  possible.  The  vote  of  a  majority  really  settles 
nothing,  and  a  decision  which  the  next  election  may  reverse  exposes 
us  to  the  waste  which  vacillation  always  entails. 

It  is  said  that  in  the  ideal  of  the  fathers  our  government  was  not 
a  democracy.  It  was  a  representative  republic,  and  the  system  of 
representation  was  expressly  designed  to  take  the  settlement  of 
specific  affairs  out  of  the  hands  of  the  people.  It  was  not  the  part 
of  the  people  to  decide  public  questions,  but  to  send  "their  wisest 
men  to  make  the  public  laws."  Nowadays  this  ideal  condition  has 
been  lost.  The  people  no  longer  think  of  choosing  their  wisest  men 
for  any  public  purpose.  They  try  to  choose  those  who  will  do  their 
bidding. 

The  daily  newspaper  and  the  telegraph  carry  to  every  man's 
hand  something  of  the  happenings  of  every  day  the  world  over.  On 
the  basis  of  such  partial  information  every  man  forms  his  own  opinion 
on  every  subject.  These  opinions  for  the  most  part  are  crude, 
prejudiced,  and  incomplete;  but  they  serve  as  a  basis  for  public 
action.  The  common  man's  horizon  is  no  longer  bounded  by  the 
affairs  of  the  village,  to  be  settled  in  town-meeting  in  accordance 
with  the  expectations  of  the  fathers.  He  knows  something  about  all  the 
affairs  of  State,  and  as  local  affairs  receive  scant  notice  in  the  news 
papers  it  is  these  which  he  neglects  and  forgets.  The  town-meeting 
has  decayed  through  the  growth  of  newspaper  information,  the  intro 
duction  of  the  voter  to  broader  interests — interests  less  vital  no  doubt 
to  the  average  man  but  more  potent  to  affect  his  fancy. 

35 


Having  opinions  of  his  own,  however  crude,  on  all  public  ques 
tions,  the  citizen  demands  that  his  representatives  should  carry  out 
these  opinions.  If  he  has,  or  thinks  he  has,  a  financial  interest  in 
any  line  of  policy,  he  will  vote  for  men  whose  interests  are  the  same 
as  his.  In  such  manner  Congress  has  become  not  an  assembly  of 
"  the  wisest  men  to  make  the  public  laws,"  but  a  gathering  of  attor 
neys,  each  pledged  to  some  local  or  corporate  interest,  and  each  doing 
his  best,  or  appearing  to  do  it,  to  carry  out  lines  of  policy  dictated  by 
others.  This  condition  the  fathers  could  not  foresee.  The  tele 
graph  and  the  newspaper  have  brought  it  about.  It  has  great  disad 
vantages,  but  it  cannot  be  helped  and  it  is  with  us  to  stay. 

Because  of  this  condition  economists  of  a  certain  type  welcome 
all  extensions  of  administrative  functions.  They  would  prescribe  a 
dose  of  Imperialism  to  stiffen  the  back  of  our  democracy.  If  we  com 
plicate  the  duties  of  government,  if  we  plunge  into  delicate  and 
dangerous  foreign  relations,  our  failures  and  humiliation  will  increase 
the  demand  for  skill.  The  business  of  horse-stealing  quickens  a 
man's  eye  and  improves  his  horsemanship.  In  such  fashion  the 
business  of  land-grabbing  improves  diplomacy.  The  old  idea  of 
representation  by  statesmen  unpledged  to  any  line  of  action  will 
arise  again.  The  choice  of  attorneys  will  be  limited  to  local 
assemblies,  and  real  leaders  of  parties  will  come  to  the  front. 

Such  a  change  England  has  seen  since  her  aggressive  foreign 
policy  forced  upon  her  the  need  of  eternal  vigilance.  Such  a 
change  makes  for  better  government  at  the  expense  of  popular 
choice.  "This  may  not  be  republicanism,"  says  Lummis,  speaking 
of  the  work  of  Diaz  in  Mexico,  ''but  it  is  business/'  The  ruler  of 
England  is  not  the  people's  choice  nor  the  choice  of  the  Queen.  He 
is  the  cleverest  mouthpiece  of  the  dominant  oligarchy.  It  is  currently 
said  that  British  imperial  experiences  have  caused  the  purification  of 
British  politics  and  the  expulsion  from  them  of  the  spoils  system. 
For  this  statement  there  is  no  foundation  in  fact.  It  is  through  the 
growth  of  individual  intelligence  in  a  compact  homogeneous  nation 
that  higher  political  ideals  have  arisen.  The  conquest  of  tropical 
races  has  accompanied  this,  but  has  been  in  no  degree  its  cause. 

In  the  British  system,  the  Parliament  of  the  people  is  behind  the 
premier,  who  can  act  as  freely,  as  boldly  and  as  quickly  as  he  dare. 
In  the  Federal  system,  the  Congress  of  the  people  stands  first  and 
the  President  acts  behind  them  and  by  their  permission.  Only  in 
time  of  war  are  these  conditions  reversed  and  then  only  partially.  For 
this  reason  the  severe  blame  visited  on  the  President  for  failure  to 
declare  any  tangible  policy  in  regard  to  the  Philippines  is  only  par 
tially  deserved. 

36 


A  movement  toward  the  British  system  would  require  changes 
in  the  Constitution,  a  movement  toward  further  centralization  and 
toward  greater  party  responsibility.  This  its  advocates  usually 
recognize.  "  It  may  not  be  republicanism,  but  it  is  business."  Such 
a  change,  it  is  maintained,  would  soon  do  away  with  our  poisonous  and 
shameful  spoils  system.  It  would  insure  strong,  sound,  and  dignified 
party  administration,  because  anything  short  of  this  would  ruin  party  or 
country.  Under  such  conditions  no  paltry  place-hunter  could  hold  a 
seat  in  our  Cabinets,  no  weakling  could  thrust  himself  forward  in 
our  Civil  Service,  and  our  Presidents  would  be  men  who  would 
make  public  opinion,  never  supinely  wait  for  it,  still  less  accept  its 
vulgar  counterfeit  of  mob  opinion. 

With  such  conditions  in  the  Executive,  and  an  automatic,  per 
sistent,  competent  colonial  service,  with  army  and  navy  to  match, 
we  could  dictate  to  the  whole  earth.  We  could  have  our  hand  in 
the  affairs  of  all  nations,  and  the  diplomacy  of  all  the  world  would 
tremble  at  our  frown. 

All  this  in  its  essence,  it  is  claimed,  is  to  return  to  the  ideals  of 
the  fathers  before  Jackson's  vulgarity  corrupted  our  Civil  Service, 
and  before  Lincoln's  "bath  of  the  people"  led  the  common  man  to 
regard  himself  as  the  main  factor  in  our  government.  "Of  the 
people,  by  the  people,"  were  Lincoln's  additions.  The  right  word 
is  "  Government  for  the  people,"  and  by  those  who  know  better 
than  the  people  how  the  people  should  be  governed. 

In  this  vein  we  are  told  that  the  people  have  been  "  debauched 
by  freedom."  They  have  come  to  fear  the  bugaboo  of  too  much 
government,  too  much  army.  Because  we  are  {<  debauched  by 
freedom  "  we  have  lost  our  respect  for  authority,  our  respect  for  law. 

Some  of  our  historians  now  assure  us  that  government  by  the 
consent  of  the  governed  was  only  a  catch-phrase.  We  never  meant 
what  we  said  when  we  took  these  glittering  generalities  from  the 
philosophers  of  France.  We  governed  our  Louisiana  territory  just  as 
we  pleased  with  these  phrases  in  our  mouths,  asking  no  advice  of  the 
French  Creoles.  We  never  sought  consent  of  the  Indian.  We 
override  the  will  of  the  negro  even  yet.  His  vote  is  only  a  farce.  We 
have  never  even  asked  our  women,  half  our  whole  number,  whether 
they  consent  to  our  government  or  not.  All  of  this  is  petty 
quibbling.  These  exceptions  only  prove  the  rule.  The  principle 
holds  in  spite  of  temporary  failures  justified  by  local  conditions  or 
not  justified  at  all.  So  far  as  women  are  concerned  it  is  still,  right  or 
wrong,  the  theory  of  most  civilized  governments,  ours  with  the  rest, 
that  women  have  no  governmental  interests  at  variance  with  those  of 
men.  They  consent  tacitly  but  constantly  to  be  represented  by 

37 


their  fathers,  brothers,  or  husbands.  Doubtless  this  condition  is  not 
eternal,  but  it  exists  at  present,  and  no  one  can  claim  that  f<  consent 
of  the  governed  "  is  reached  only  by  a  formal  vote. 

As  to  this  Lincoln  once  said:  —  "the  framers  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  meant  to  set  up  a  standard  maxim  for  free  society 
which  should  be  familiar  to  all,  and  revered  by  all,  constantly  looked 
to,  constantly  labored  for,  and  even,  though  never  perfectly  attained, 
constantly  approximated,  and  thereby  constantly  deepening  its  influ 
ence,  and  augmenting  the  happiness,  and  value  of  life  to  all  peoples 
of  all  colors  everywhere.  "  One  year  later,  speaking  at  Philadelphia, 
he  said  that  he  would  "  rather  be  assassinated  on  the  spot  than  to  act 
in  the  view,  that  the  country  could  be  saved  by  giving  up  the  princi 
ples  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence." 

"  Our  own  country,"  says  Hosea  Wilbur,  "  is  bounded  on  the 
north  and  the  south,  on  the  east  and  the  west  by  justice,  and  where 
she  oversteps  these  invisible  bounds,  even  so  much  as  by  a  hair's 
breadth,  she  ceases  to  be  our  mother."  Inside  these  boundaries  our 
flag  is  the  banner  of  freedom;  outside  it  is  the  standard  of  the  pirate. 
Whether  on  a  stolen  guano  Mexican  island  or  on  a  sugar  plantation 
wrenched  or  bought  from  Spain,  its  truest  friends  shall  be  the  first 
to  haul  it  down. 

Doubtless  these  imperialists  are  partly  in  the  right.  It  is  certain 
that  the  formation  of  a  colonial  bureau  and  a  foreign  bureau  wholly  out 
side  of  popular  control  would  make,  for  the  time  at  least,  for  better 
government  and  stronger  administration.  Doubtless  needs  like 
those  of  England  will  hasten  British  methods  of  meeting  them.  But 
government  for  the  people  and  not  of  them  has  its  weakness  as  well 
as  its  strength.  The  strength  of  democracy  lies  not  in  its  apparent 
force.  It  lies  latent,  to  be  drawn  on  in  times  of  real  need. 

Because  of  its  latent  power  our  great  blundering  democracy, 
slow  in  war  and  simple  or  clumsy  in  diplomacy,  is  strong  above  all 
other  nations.  It  can  safely  try  civic  experiments  the  very  thought 
of  which,  if  taken  seriously,  would  throw  all  Europe  into  convulsions. 
The  imperial  government  is  a  swift  express  train  which  will  run  with 
great  speed  on  a  proper  track,  but  which  is  involved  in  utter  ruin  by 
a  moment's  slip  of  mismanagement.  The  Republic  is  an  array  of 
lumbering  farm  wagons,  not  so  swift  nor  so  strong,  but  infinitely  more 
adaptable,  the  only  thing  you  can  use  on  a  farm. 

The  beauty  of  democratic  institutions  is  that  without  the 
intelligent  consent  of  those  affected  by  them  they  will  not  work  at 
all.  All  permanent  government  rests  on  acquiescence  of  the  people, 
but  ^prnr^j-flpy  ^ernnnrk  m^t-p.  It  insists  on  their  positive  action. 

38  ' 


The  strength  of  empire,  however  disguised,  lies  in  brute  force 
and  that  alone.  That  of  democracy  lies  in  the  self-control  and  the 
self-respect  of  its  individual  citizens.  The  work  of  Great  Britain 
through  the  centuries  has  been  to  teach  its  people  and  its  vassals  the 
tesson  of  respect  of  law.  It  has  been  the  mission  of  the  United 
States  to  teach  respect  for  manhood,  a  matter  vastly  more  difficult 
as  well  as  more  important. 

A  nation  self-governed  is  the  most  powerful  of  all  nations, 
because  she  is  at  peace  within  herself,  and  being  sound  at  heart  she 
has  taken  the  first  step  toward  good  government,  a  step  by  which  the 
best  government  possible  to  men  must  be  reached  in  time.  Even  the 
blunders  and  corruptions  of  democracy  make  for  good  government 
at  last.  When  the  people  find  out  what  hurts  them,  that  particular 
wrong  must  cease.  Even  the  spoils  system  with  all  its  waste  and 
shame  has  its  educative  value,  and  tremendous  will  be  the  educative 
value  of  the  process  by  which  it  is  at  last  thrown  off.  The  reaction 
from  the  conquest  of  Luzon  will  save  us  from  Imperialism  for  the 
next  fifty  years. 

Democracy  is  always  wiser  than  it  seems.  The  common  poli 
tician  knows  the  weaknesses  of  the  people  and  tries  to  profit  by  them. 
The  true  statesman  knows  the  strength  of  the  people  and  tries  to 
lead  it,  and  the  results  he  attains  are  the  marvel  of  the  world.  Such 
a  leader  of  the  people  was  Lincoln.  He  could  touch  the  noblest 
springs  in  our  national  character.  Such  leaders  will  rise  when  occa 
sion  shall  demand  them.  Meanwhile,  the  men  are  not  wanting. 
Sound  common  sense  and  devoted  patriotism  are  needed  in  all  walks 
in  life  and  are  found  there.  The  froth  on  the  waves  may  fill  our 
public  offices,  but  the  great  deep  is  below  them. 

"  Are  all  the  common  ones  so  grand, 
And  all  the  titled  ones  so  mean  ?" 

was  asked  in  1863  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  "The  common 
men  so  grand  "  though  all  the  titled  ones  be  mean  is  the  experience 
of  all  democracy.  It  is  far  better  and  far  safer  than  the  reverse  con 
dition  when  only  titled  men  are  great  and  all  the  common  men  are 
mean.  Such  nations  are  like  inverted  pyramids  resting  on  the 
strength  of  one  man. 

For  a  nation  to  be  ruled  by  leaders  may  be  considered  as  a  sur 
vival  of  primitive  conditions,  when  there  was  no  politics  save  war. 
Then  all  men  were  warriors  and  the  tribe  was  but  an  array  with  a 
camp-following  of  women,  children,  and  civilians. 

When  militarism  gives  way  to  industrialism  we  have  the  rise  of  the 
individual  man  at  the  expense  of  the  relative  standing  of  his  leaders; 

39 


for  leadership  is  necessary  only  as  collective  danger  threatens.  The 
rulers  are  transformed  from  leaders  to  agents.  These  are  at  first 
under  democracy  responsible  to  self-constituted  managers,  dema 
gogues,  and  bosses  who  usurp  control  when  no  imminence  of  danger 
forces  the  necessity  of  strong  leadership. 

From  this  transition  stage,  democracy  must  pass  on  to  settled 
institutions  and  good  service.  In  the  stage  which  comes  next,  the 
intelligent  citizen  shall  be  the  trust  and  head  of  political  affairs  with 
servants  elected,  appointed,  or  chosen  by  competitive  examinations  to 
do  his  bidding  and  carry  out  his  will.  "  The  citizen  is  at  the  head," 
says  Walt  Whitman,  and  President,  Congress  and  Courts  "are  but 
his  servants  for  pay/'  The  decay  of  leadership  must  accompany  the 
rise  of  the  individual  man. 

Let  us  assume  by  way  of  illustration  a  few  impossible  things. 
Let  us  suppose  that  the  Emperor  of  Germany  should  die  suddenly, 
and  that  with  him  should  disappear  the  whole  royal  family,  the  army, 
the  judiciary,  and  all  others  in  power  with  all  the  force  over  which  they 
had  control.  Who  can  say  what  would  happen  next?  Can  we  even 
guess  at  the  map  of  the  next  new  Germany  ? — for  the  German  Empire 
has  no  strength  in  itself.  It  is  strong  in  battle,  because  it  owns 
millions  of  fighting  men.  It  has  no  strength  in  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  The  failure  of  the  force  of  arms  even  for  a  day  would  mark 
the  end  of  the  German  Empire. 

On  even  frailer  basis  rests  the  Republic  of  France.  Could  such 
good  fortune  befall  her  as  the  loss  of  her  army  and  all  others  in  power, 
no  one  could  foretell  her  protean  changes.  If,  perchance,  the  sceptre 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  people,  the  new  Republic  of  France  would 
be  very  different  from  any  she  has  ever  yet  seen. 

If  in  Great  Britain  the  same  change  could  take  place  what  should 
we  see  ?  If  every  official  of  whatever  grade,  all  the  army,  and  all  the 
navy  were  swallowed  in  the  sea  can  we  forecast  the  result  ? 

Evidently  in  England  herself  no  great  change  would  arise. 
Respect  for  law  and  respect  for  tradition  are  firmly  ingrained  in  the 
English  character.  What  had  been  would  be  established  again,  and 
the  Commonwealth  of  England  would  lose  not  a  whit  of  its  power  or 
stability.  But  what  of  the  British  Empire  ?  Its  scattered  fragments 
could  never  be  collected  again.  Ireland,  held  by  force,  would  go  in 
her  own  way,  and  her  different  factions  would  again  repel  one  another. 
Self-government  for  Ireland  means  disunion  of  the  Empire,  and  this 
the  English  statesmen  know  too  well.  India  is  no  nearer  England 
to-day  than  she  was  a  hundred  years  ago.  There  is  not  one  of  her 
vassal  nations  which  would  not  escape  if  it  could.  There  is  not  one 
whose  presence  does  not  weaken  the  British  Empire.  Shrewd  admin- 

40 


istration  has  learned  to  count  on  this  and  to  find  out  compensating 
advantages,  A  vast  business  on  a  small  capital  is  the  type  of  British 
dominion.  No  wonder  England  cherishes  her  relation  to  Canada  and 
Australia,  elder  children  of  hers,  who  give  her  moral  help  but  who 
take  care  of  themselves.  England  dare  not  release  Ireland  from 
federal  union,  because  only  as  a  helpless  minority  can  Ireland  be  con 
trolled.  On  the  other  hand  she  dare  not  admit  the  rest  of  the  empire 
to  the  same  federation  lest  she  be  thrown  into  the  minority  herself. 
Sooner  or  later  both  these  questions  will  become  burning  ones. 
When  they  are  solved  Great  Britain  will  be  no  longer  an  empire. 

11  Gladly,"  says  Dr.  Woolsey,  "  would  Great  Britain  limit  her 
responsibilities  if  she  could;  but  it  would  be  construed  as  a  sign  of 
weakness,  and  she  fears  the  consequences.  She  cannot  let  go." 
"Imperial  expansion,  "  says  Frederick  Harrison,  speaking  of  condi 
tions  in  England,  "  means  domestic  stagnation.  It  swallowed  the 
energies  of  Liberalism  and  bartered  progress  for  glory."  The 
fabric  of  Imperialism,  whatever  its  form,  is  built  in  shifting  sands. 
The  only  solid  foundation  for  any  government  is  "the  consent  of 
the  governed;"  and  here  lies  the  strength  of  the  United  States,  the 
soundest  government  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Not  the  wisest,  not  the 
most  economical,  most  dignified,  or  most  just,  but  the  firmest  in  its 
basis,  and,  therefore,  the  most  enduring. 

At  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  when  more  than  ever  before  in  its 
history  the  nation  was  dependent  on  a  single  man,  and  he  the  wisest, 
bravest,  tenderest  of  all,  Lincoln  was  murdered.  The  land  was 
filled  with  sorrow  and  distress,  but  there  Was  no  alarm  in  our  body 
politic.  It  was  left  to  Lincoln,  says  Brownell, 

"  Even  in  death,  to  give 

This  token  for  freedom's  strife 
A  proof  how  republics  live, 
Not  by  a  single  life, 
But  the  right  divine  of  man 
The  million  trained  to  be  free." 

Our  government  would  have  endured,  even  in  that  troubled  time,  had 
every  official  of  every  State  fallen  with  Lincoln. 

Should  our  whole  body  of  officers,  our  army,  our  navy,  perish 
to-morrow,  all  would  go  on  as  before.  Some  veteran  of  the  Civil 
War,  or  some  schoolmaster,  perhaps,  would  take  the  chair  and  call 
the  people  to  order.  The  machinery  of  democracy  would  be  started, 
and,  once  started,  would  proceed  in  its  usual  way.  We  should  not 
have  Cuba  nor  the  Philippines,  but  we  should  retain  all  that  was 
worth  keeping.  This  stability  of  administration  would  not  arise 
from  our  respect  for  law.  That  feeling  is  none  too  strong  among 

41 


our  "  fierce  democracy/'  Still  less  would  it  spring  from  respect  for 
tradition.  We  don't  care  a  continental  for  tradition.  We  should  act 
on  the  common  sense  of  the  common  man.  To  cultivate  this  com 
mon  sense  is  the  chief  mission  of  democracy.  In  this  it  is  effective, 
and  for  that  reason  our  Republic  is  the  strongest  and  soundest  govern 
ment  under  heaven. 

"  I  have  never  learned,"  says  John  Brown,  "that  God  is  a 
respecter  of  persons."  There  is  "  God  in  our  Constitution,  "  not  in 
name,  but  in  fact,  for  by  it  "all  men  are  equal  before  the  law," 
which  "is  no  respecter  of  persons."  Men  are  men,  whether  white 
or  black  or  brown  or  yellow.  The  British  government  rests  on  a 
foundation  of  inequality.  Its  rewards  are  titles  of  nobility  which 
imply  that  the  plain  man  is  ignoble.  The  word  law  is  written  on  its 
every  page;  the  word  justice  occurs  only  as  between  equals.  Neither 
the  word  nor  the  idea  of  justice  finds  place  in  England's  dealing 
with  other  nations. 

"  How  long  will  the  United  States  endure  ?  "  Guizot  once  asked 
of  James  Russell  Lowell.  "So  long  as  the  ideas  of  its  founders 
remain  dominant,"  was  his  answer.  Just  so  long  as  her  government 
rests  on  the  intelligent  "  consent  of  the  governed."  When  it  rests  in 
part  on  force,  no  matter  how  wisely  applied,  in  so  far  will  it  be 
unstable.  A  standing  army  contains  the  seeds  of  decay.  As  mili 
tarism  grows  democracy  must  die.  But  without  the  constant  pressure 
of  force  of  arms,  law  and  order  and  industry  have  never  in  any  high 
degree  existed  in  the  tropics.  Mexico  to-day  is  a  land  of  law  and 
order,  but  the  soldier  is  everywhere.  Every  railway  train  in  the 
Republic  carries  at  least  three  rurales,  or  national  guardsmen.  Every 
flag  station  has  two  or  three,  and  every  considerable  town  has  its  bat 
talion  or  its  regiment.  These  soldiers  are  drawn  from  the  body  of 
the  people  ;  very  many  of  them  are  ex-brigands,  reformed  to  the 
higher  use  of  the  enforcement  of  law.  "  This  may  not  be  republi 
canism,  but  it  is  business."  The  conditions  of  law  and  order  in  the 
'hilippines  are  just  the  same.  You  may  use  native  soldiers  if  you 
like,  but  without  force  order  cannot  exist. 

The  cost  of  this  whole  business  may  be  urged  as  an  argument 
against  annexation.  It  will  appeal  to  our  people  as  the  discussion 
of  the  bill  for  the  enlargement  of  the  army  plainly  shows.  The 
financial  statements  of  Congress  have  proved  the  strongest  arguments 
against  persistency  in  folly.  It  is  clearly  evident  that  the  cost  of  con 
quest  or  even  military  occupation  of  the  Philippines  is  grotesquely  in 
excess  of  any  possible  gain  to  the  government.  The  whole  trade  of 
the  Islands  for  five  years,  if  we  get  all  of  it,  would  not  pay  for  a 
second-class  battle-ship.  People  who  live  in  straw  houses  do  not 

42 


make  international  trade.  We  may  open  the  way  for  individuals  and 
corporations  to  grow  rich,  but  the  people  can  never  get  their  money 
back. 

No  possible  development  of  the  Islands  can  profit  the  people  at 
large.  There  are  no  openings  in  the  tropics  for  the  small  farmer, 
none  for  the  American  laborer,  or  in  general  none  for  any  of  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  American  people ;  nor  can  any  be  made  by  any 
act  of  ours.  We  cannot  alter  the  conditions  of  life  in  he  Orient. 
The  question  of  flag,  other  things  being  equal,  affects  neither  com 
merce  nor  industry.  Trade  never  "follows  the  flag "  because  it  is 
a  flag.  Trade  "  flies  through  the  open  door"  because  it  is  a  door. 
Men  buy  or  sell  wherever  they  can  make  money. 

The  whole  argument  that  the  needs  of  our  commerce  demand  ^ 
the  occupation  of  the  Philippine  Archipelago  is  both  fallacious  and 
immoral.  It  is  untrue  in  the  first  place,  and  unworthy  in  the 
second.  The  needs  of  commerce  demand  no  act  of  injustice  and  they 
excuse  none.  The  total  cost  of  maintenance  of  our  proposed  gov 
ernment  in  the  Philippines  cannot  fall  short  of  $10,000,000  per 
year  and  may  be  far  greater.  Our  actual  trade  with  the  Islands  now 
amounts  to  less  than  $500,000  per  year,  imports  and  exports  together, 
and  the  whole  trade  of  the  Philippines  with  all  the  world  is  less  than 
$30,000,000.  No  form  of  government  could  increase  this  much,  and, 
under  republican  forms  it  might  fall  off.  The  less  compulsion,  the 
less  labor.  Allowing  a  net  profit  of  ten  per  cent  on  all  transactions, 
a  complete  monopoly  of  Philippine  trade  would  leave  the  people  a 
debt  of  seven  millions  for  every  three  millions  our  trading  companies 
might  gain.  In  time,  perhaps,  the  outlook  would  be  less  unequal. 
Trade  might  increase,  expenses  grow  less,  but  in  no  conceivable  event 
would  the  people  get  their  money  back.  The  returns  either  in 
money  or  civilization  would  always  be  below  their  cost.  The  argu 
ment  for  commercial  expansion  has  its  roots  in  our  experience  of 
booming  towns  and  has  no  value  with  careful  financiers.  The  whole 
trade  of  all  the  tropics  will,  at  the  best,  be  but  a  trifling  part  of  the 
commerce  of  the  world.  Certain  drugs,  dyes,  and  fruits,  mainly 
natural  products,  with  sugar,  tobacco,  coffee,  and  tea  make  almost  the 

whole  of  it. 

i  / 

So  far  as  San  Francisco  is  concerned,  she  has  not  much  to  gain  '/ 
or  lose  from  our  actions  in  the  Philippines.  She  will  always  be  a 
noble  city,  a  great  city,  but  never  an  enormous  one.  She  will  not  be 
the  gigantic  mart  of  the  Orient,  nor  even  the  Chicago  of  the  Pacific. 
The  Pacific  may  be  our  ocean,  but  it  is  too  wide  to  be  an  equal  of 
the  Atlantic.  Besides,  San  Francisco  has  too  many  rival  ports.  She 
has  little  to  sell  but  flour  and  fruit,  and  no  ships  to  carry  even  these. 

43 


The  trade  with  Manila,  consisting  now  of  outgoing  transports  carrying 
troops  and  returning  with  coffins,  will  never  make  San  Francisco  rich. 
It  is  true  that  conditions  may  change,  but  no  signs  of  improvement 
are  visible  yet. 

Yet  it  is  true  that  commercial  Imperialism  might  pay  if  we  were 
free  to  act  as  England  would  with  her  wisdom,  her  experience,  and  her 
selfishness  ;  but  only  on  a  vast  and  generous  scale,  considering  com 
mercial  results  only,  could  we  make  her  policy  effective.  The 
function  of  the  British  army  and  navy  in  these  days  is  not  glory  nor 
dominion.  It  is  to  clear  away  the  barriers  to  trade.  When  England 
subjugates  a  nation  she  lets  it  alone  as  much  as  she  can.  Interference 
means  waste  of  men  and  money.  She  never  meddles  with  the 
religion  nor  the  forms  of  government  of  her  vassals.  The  people 
may  choose  king,  or  president,  or  sultan,  and  each  may  conduct  his 
own  court  in  his  own  way,  with  all  the  gold  lace  and  peacock  feathers 
that  his  barbaric  taste  may  demand.  England  does  not  care  for  this. 
On  her  coat-of-arms  are  these  three  words  only,  VOLUME  OF 
TRADE. 

All  that  England  now  asks  of  the  nations  she  calls  colonies  is  this, 
and  this  she  gets,  that  there  shall  be  law  and  order,  and  all  doors 
wide  open  to  the  commerce  of  all  the  world.  So  long  as  other  nations 
keep  closed  doors  at  home,  England  can  undersell  them  in  the 
markets  of  the  world.  Imperialism,  then,  as  Lord  Beresford  truth 
fully  insists,  means  with  England  simply  this,  Volume  of  Trade.  All 
the  rest  is  mere  flummery.  The  sole  purpose  of  the  British  navy, 
accident  aside,  is  to  hold  the  doors  of  the  world  open  to  British 
merchant  ships.  Except  as  an  adjunct  to  an  open  door  of  commerce 
all  foreign  possessions  are  costly  and  ruinous  folly.  The  maintenance 
of  Algiers,  Madagascar  and  the  Indo-China  as  tariff-bound  colonies 
for  Frenchmen  to  exploit  has  wrought  the  financial  ruin  of  France. 
The  militarism  these  follies  made  necessary  has  wrought  her  civic 
ruin.  But  with  Great  Britain  army  and  navy  are  but  adjuncts  used 
with  marvelous  skill  toward  one  great  purpose,  Volume  of  Trade. 

The  United  States  cannot  be  thus  turned  into  a  vast  machine 
for  helping  its  manufacturers  and  merchants.  She  has  many  other 
interests,  and  the  greatest  are  educational  and  moral. 

To  drop  all  this  and  plunge  into  the  promotion  of  commerce 
she  must  cast  aside  all  the  checks  and  balances  of  her  Constitution 
and  to  stand  unhampered,  just  as  England  stands. 

The  British  Government  acts  on  the  instant.  Its  only  limitation 
is  the  confidence  of  the  people.  So  long  as  it  holds  this  by  success 
there  is  no  restraint  on  its  achievements.  One  doubt  or  failure  throws 
the  power  into  the  hands  of  the  opposing  party.  This  forces  to  the 

44 


front  the  cleverest  and  strongest  men  in  all  England.  It  forbids 
incompetence  in  every  branch  of  government.  A  paltry  Minister  of 
War,  a  scandal  of  embalmed  beef,  a  rebellion  which  tact  would  have 
avoided,  any  of  these  things  would  throw  the  British  Ministry  out  of 
power.  So  these  things  in  England  never  happen. 

Our  government  is  not  an  organism  which  can  think  and  act  as 
a  unit.  It  is  simply  the  reflex  of  the  people  themselves  ;  the  mirror 
of  the  mass,  with  all  its  crudities  and  inconsistencies.  It  exists  for 
the  purpose  of  exalting  men,  not  for  developing  industry  or  swelling 
the  Volume  of  Trade.  The  British  flag  extends  the  trade  of  England 
because  it  insures  local  peace  and  clears  away  the  rubbish  of  tariff 
which  obstructs  traffic.  The  Dutch  flag  helps  the  trade  of  Holland 
because  it  means  enforced  industrialism,  slavery  that  pays  its  way. 
The  American  flag,  outside  of  America,  as  yet  means  nothing;  neither 
greater  industry  nor  freer  commerce,  nor  yet  increased  observance  of 
law  ;  our  flag  stands  for  something  accomplished.  To  plant  it  any 
where  cannot  help  our  trade. 

If  we  were  to  follow  in  England's  footsteps  let  us  see  what  we 
should  have  done.  Let  us  begin  with  the  war  for  Cuban  freedom, 
though  with  England  in  our  place  there  would  have  been  no  war.  She 
would  have  found  a  way  of  saving  Cuba  for  herself  without  humiliat 
ing  Spain. 

But  the  war  once  on  would  have  been  pushed  on  business  prin 
ciples.  Our  navy  shows  the  British  method.  Our  army  suggests  the 
methods  of  Spain.  Great  Britain  would  have  no  scandal  in  her 
army  because  she  would  have  no  politicians  there.  There  would 
have  been  no  officials  not  trained  to  the  profession;  no  colonels 
who  had  not  earned  their  promotion  by  success.  Severe  training  and 
faithful  service  give  military  precedence  in  England.  Political 
services  or  favor  of  the  Minister  do  not  count.  They  find  their 
reward  in  titles  of  nobility.  Favoritism  on  the  part  of  a  Minister  of 
War  would  throw  the  whole  government  out  of  power.  In  England, 
political  scheming  in  army  or  navy  or  civil  service  alike  stands  on 
the  plane  of  forgery  or  counterfeiting.  The  nation  could  not  endure 
it  and  live. 

The  war  once  finished,  peace  would  be  made  with  the  blade  of 
the  sword.  No  civil  commission  would  be  sent  to  wrangle  over  the 
details.  They  would  be  settled  on  the  instant.  Spain  would  be 
given  a  day  to  relinquish  whatever  England  wanted,  and  England 
would  speak  her  wishes  in  no  uncertain  tones.  What  England  would 
do  with  these  possessions  is  evident  enough.  She  would  put  down 
rioting  and  brigandage,  and  she  would  employ  the  native  soldiery  to 
do  it.  She  would  press  the  strongest  leaders  into  her  service, 

45 


humoring  their  vanity  with  titles  and  making  her  interests  their  own. 
She  would  let  the  people  form  whatever  government  their  fancy  chose* 
with  only  this  limitation,  all  factions  must  keep  the  peace.  To  show 
what  peace  means  she  would  knock  down  a  fortress  or  two,  or  blow  a 
few  hundred  rebels  from  her  guns  for  an  object  lesson  to  the  rest. 

All  this  in  England's  case  would  have  taken  place  long  ago  with 
the  sinking  of  the  navies  of  her  foes,  and  once  accomplished  the 
door  of  commerce  would  be  flung  open  to  all  the  world.  All  this 
has  its  glories,  it  may  be  its  advantages,  and  we  have  men  enough 
who,  with  force  in  hand,  could  carry  out  its  every  detail.  But  it 
could  not  be  done  under  our  Constitution,  nor  under  our  relation  of 
parties,  nor  under  the  administration  now  at  the  head  of  our  affairs. 
To  pause  in  its  accomplishment  would  be  fatal.  To  hesitate  is  to  fail, 
and  our  opportunity,  such  as  it  was,  as  well  as  our  imperial  prestige, 
was  lost  when  we  made  the  leaders  of  the  Filipinos  our  enemies. 

"If  ever,"  says  Dr.  William  James  of  Harvard,  "  there  was  a 
situation  to  be  handled  psychologically,  it  was  this  one.  The  first 
thing  that  any  European  Government  would  have  done  would  have 
been  to  approach  it  from  the  psychological  side:  Ascertain  the  senti 
ments  of  the  natives  and  the  ideals  they  might  be  led  by,  get  into 
touch  immediately  with  Aguinaldo,  contract  some  partnership,  buy  his 
help  by  giving  ours,  etc.  Had  our  officers  on  the  ground  been 
allowed  to  follow  their  own  common  sense  and  good  feeling  they 
would  probably  have  done  just  this.  Meanwhile,  as  they  were  for 
bidden  by  orders  from  Washington,  no  one  knows  what  they  would 
have  done. 

"  But  it  is  obvious  that  for  our  rulers  at  Washington  the  Filipinos 
have  not  existed  as  psychological  quantities  at  all,  except  so  far  as 
they  might  be  moved  by  President  McKinley's  proclamation.  *  *  * 
When  General  Miller  cables  that  they  won't  let  him  land  at  Iloilo, 
the  President,  we  are  told,  cables  back:  "Cannot  my  proclamation 
be  distributed  ? "  But  apart  from  this  fine  piece  of  sympathetic 
insight  into  foreigners'  minds  there  is  no  clear  sign  of  its  ever  having 
occurred  to  anyone  at  Washington  that  the  Filipinos  could  have  any 
feelings  or  insides  of  their  own  whatever,  that  might  possibly  need  to 
be  considered  in  our  arrangements.  It  was  merely  a  big  material 
corporation  against  a  small  one,  the  "  soul  "  of  the  big  one  consisting 
in  a  stock  of  moral  phrases,  the  little  one  owning  no  soul  at  all. 

"  In  short  we  have  treated  the  Filipinos  as  if  they  were  a  painted 
picture,  an  amount  of  mere  matter  in  our  way.  They  are  too  remote 
from  us  ever  to  be  realized  as  they  exist  in  their  inwardness.  They 
are  too  far  away  ;  and  they  will  remain  too  far  away  to  the  end  of  the 

46 


chapter.     If  the  first  step  is  such  a  criminal  blunder,  what  shall  we 
expect  of  the  last?" 

In  grim  and  graphic  fashion  the  clear-sighted  editor  of  the  San 
Francisco  Argonaut  sets  forth  the  lines  on  which  we  may  succeed  in 
our  schemes  of  conquest: 

"If  we  persevere  in  our  imperialistic  plans,  we  shall  have  to 
rely  upon  native  troops,  for  the  reason  that  we  can  not  get  Americans.  \^ 
It  is  becoming  more  and  more  apparent  that  the  youth  of  America 
will  not  volunteer  for  regular  service  in  the  tropics.  We  shall  have 
to  adopt  the  same  methods  pursued  by  European  colonial  powers  if 
we  continue  in  our  imperialistic  groove.  We  shall  have  to  lay  aside 
a  great  many  scruples  to  which  we  now  cling. 

"  For  example,  in  the  Philippines  we  may  have  to  adopt  Spanish 
methods  in  many  ways.  We  may  find  it  necessary  to  stir  up  one 
tribe  of  natives  against  another.  Thus  we  could  arm  the  Visayans, 
drill  them,  and  ship  them  to  Luzon.  The  Visayans  hate  theTagalos, 
and  we  could  set  the  two  tribes  to  fighting  together,  and  with  the 
Visayans  we  might  exterminate  the  Tagalos.  Then,  after  the  Tagalos 
were  exterminated  or  subjected,  we  could  stir  up  the  fierce  Moros 
of  Mindanao  against  the  Visayans.  By  judiciously  fomenting  strife 
we  could  exterminate  the  Visayans.  There  would  then  remain  only 
the  Moros,  and  probably  we  could  get  away  with  them  ourselves. 

"Here  is  another  suggestion.  The  Spaniards  have  always  found 
it  necessary  to  use  treachery,  torture,  and  bribery  in  the  Philippines. 
We  shall  probably  have  to  do  the  same.  The  Anglo-Saxon  methods 
of  warfare  do  not  appeal  to  the  Malay.  In  pursuance  of  our  imperial 
istic  plans,  it  would  be  well  to  hire  some  of  the  insurgent  lieutenants 
to  betray  Aguinaldo  and  other  chieftains  into  our  clutches.  A  little 
bribery,  a  little  treachery,  and  a  little  ambuscading,  and  we  would  trap 
Aguinaldo  and  his  chieftains.  Then,  instead  of  putting  them  to 
death  in  the  ordinary  way,  it  might  be  well  to  torture  them.  The 
Spaniards  have  left  behind  them  some  means  to  that  end  in  the 
dungeons  in  Manila.  The  rack,  the  thumbscrew,  the  trial  by  fire, 
the  trial  by  molten  lead,  boiling  insurgents  alive,  crushing  their  bones 
in  ingenious  mechanisms  of  torture — these  are  some  of  the  methods 
that  would  impress  the  Malay  mind.  It  would  show  them  that  we 
are  in  earnest.  Or^Jary,  decent,  Christian,  and  civilized  methods, 
such  as  the  United  States  have  always  pursued  in  warfare,  will  only 
lead  them  to  believe  that  we  are  weaklings  and  cowards,  and  that  we 
are  therefore  to  be  steadily  and  sturdily  combated, 

"  This  may  seem  to  some  of  the  more  sentimental  of  our  readers 
like  grim  jesting.  It  is  not.  It  is  grim  earnest.  We  assure  them 
that  the  Malay  race  can  be  ruled  only  by  terror.  The  Dutch 

47 


can  tell  us  a  little  about  that  from  their  experiences  in  Java.  If  there 
be  a  belief  throughout  the  United  States  that  these  medieval  methods 
are  unfitted  for  us,  then  we  shall  have  to  retire  from  attempting  to 
manage  Malays.  Malays  are  more  than  medieval.  They  hark 
back  to  the  old,  cruel  days  of  primeval  man.  They  are  primeval 
rather  than  medieval,  and  if  we  want  to  manage  Malays,  we  will  have 
to  do  it  in  such  ways  that  mere  murder  would  be  kindness." 

Others  say  that  China  is  soon  to  be  looted  by  the  powers  of 
Europe.  We  wish  to  be  on  hand  in  the  center  of  the  fight  to  get 
a  share  of  her  land  and  trade.  "  I  held  the  enemy  down,"  said  brave 
John  Phoenix  at  San  Diego,  "  with  my  nose,  which  I  inserted 
between  his  teeth  for  that  purpose."  The  vultures  are  already  at 
the  huge  Mongolian  carcass.  Let  the  Eagle  of  Freedom  join  his  fel 
low  buzzards  till  his  belly  is  full.  Too  proud  to  attack  for  ourselves, 
we  will  be  close  at  hand  to  seize  whatever  the  others  may  drop  in  the 
scramble.  Why  not  ?  If  we  do  not  enter  the  struggle,  they  "will 
forever  shut  us  out  of  the  trade  of  China."  What  nonsense  this  is. 
Trade  demands  customers,  and  China  will  never  have  a  better  cus 
tomer  than  the  United  States.  To  shut  out  anybody  shuts  out  trade 
and  the  wrangling  powers  will  bid  for  our  markets,  even  if  we  leave 
to  them  the  cost,  the  waste  and  the  shame  of  the  spoliation  of  China. 
To  secure  our  share  of  the  China  trade  we  have  only  to  be  ready 
with  something  to  exchange  and  ships  to  carry  it.  No  nation  can 
afford  to  subjugate  China  or  to  hold,  any  part  of  it  under  military 
force.  The  sphere  of  influence  is  the  open  door.  We  have  only  to 
meet  the  open  door  with  open  door.  To  hold  the  Philippines  will 
not  make  our  commerce.  Annex  them  and  we  shall  be  just  as  far 
from  the  goal  as  before.  Bind  them  with  our  tariffs  and  we  shall 
leave  them  practically  no  commerce  at  all.  In  any  case,  beyond  the 
conveniences  of  a  coaling  station  they  do  not  enter  into  the  Chinese 
question  in  any  way. 

The  argument  that  annexation  is  a  violation  of  our  Constitution 
does  not  impress  me  as  conclusive.  The  Constitution  is  an  agree 
ment  to  secure  justice  and  prudence  in  our  internal  affairs.  Its 
validity  is  between  State  and  State,  and  between  man  and  man.  The 
hope  of  this  country  lies  in  the  intelligence,  morality  and  virility  of 
its  people,  not  in  the  wisdom  of  its  leaders,  still^K  in  the  perfections 
of  its  Constitution.  Constitutions  are  mere  pa^p  at  best,  unless  they 
rest  on  the  consent  of  the  governed;  unless  the  principles  they  repre 
sent  are  deep  ingrained  in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  If  the  United 
States  is  a  nation  she  holds  all  national  prerogatives.  As  a  nation  she 
may  do  whatever  she  chooses,  if  no  other  power  prevents.  The 
Constitution  cannot  test  the  wisdom  of  an  action.  She  may 

48 


annex  barbarous  countries,  make  war  on  the  universe,  or  do  any 
other  wicked  or  foolish  thing  if  the  decision  to  do  so  keeps  within 
proper  forms  of  law.  If,  however,  the  Constitution  offers  an  effective 
barrier  against  folly  we  shall  soon  find  it  out.  We  may  be  sure  that 
ao  weapon  against  Imperialism  will  be  left  unused.  Whether  the 
letter  of  the  Constitution  forbids  the  acquisition  of  vassal  provinces 
and  rotten  boroughs  is  an  open  question.  But  there  is  no  question 
that  the  spirit  is  opposed  to  both.  Had  such  conditions  been  fore 
seen,  the  annexation  of  either  would  doubtless  have  been  formally 
forbidden. 

I  do  not  myself  believe  that  the  annexation  of  the  Philippines 
will  prove  fatal  to  our  Constitution  or  fatal  to  democracy.  It  will  be 
endlessly  mischievous,  but  it  will  not  kill.  The  only  poison  that  can 
kill  is  personal  corruption,  the  moral  rottenness  of  our  people.  The 
government  by  the  people  has  wondrous  vitality,  and  it  has  already 
survived  gigantic  crimes.  It  has  outlived  the  monstrous  blunder  of 
secession  and  the  headless  spasms  of  "  organized  labor."  It  will  out 
live  the  aftermath  of  this  war  with  Spain,  "You  cannot  fool  all 
the  people  all  the  time."  This  epigram  of  Lincoln's  expresses  the 
final  strength  of  democracy.  When  the  craze  of  the  day  has  subsided 
and  we  have  counted  our  loss  in  blood  and  treasure,  we  shall  "walk 
backward  with  averted  gaze  to  hide  our  shame."  May  this  shame 
be  enduring,  for  it  is  our  guarantee  that  we  shall  not  do  the  like 
again. 

Of  late  the  argument  of  annexation  assumes  a  different  form. 
It  is  justified  because  it  is  inevitable.  Let  us  enter  the  movement 
to  rule  it.  Some  of  our  ablest  students  of  political  affairs  argue 
in  this  fashion.  The  treaty  with  Spain  is  sure  to  be  ratified.  The  ,  > 
Philippines  will  be  ceded  to  the  United  States.  Cession  compels  L 
annexation.  We  are  in  the  current — not  of  divine  Providence  nor  of 
abstract  destiny,  but  of  inevitable  public  opinion.  It  is  no  more 
use  to  struggle  against  this  than  against  winds  and  tides.  "  The  King 
can  do  no  wrong."  All  the  prestige  of  power  is  with  the  adminis 
tration.  The  American  people  are  bent  upon  keeping  all  the  territory 
won  from  Spain.  It  is  all  a  great  joke  with  them,  and  they  will  never 
stop  to  look  at  the  thing  seriously.  The  one-sided,  freakish  and  chival 
rous  war  has  intem^kd  the  humor  of  the  situation.  As  well  argue 
against  a  cyclone  as^gainst  a  national  movement.  The  American 
people  are  fearless  and  determined.  They  go  ahead  to  the  aim  in 
view,  and  can  take  no  backward  step.  They  have  solved  many 
difficulties  in  the  past  by  sheer  headlong  obstinacy.  They  will  solve 
these  difficulties  in  the  same  fashion.  Let  us  join  the  procession. 
Let  us  not  cheapen  our  influence  by  mugwumpery,  but  accept  the 

49 


inevitable,  step  to  the  front  as  leaders  and  handle  the  movement 
as  best  we  can.  Especially,  they  tell  us,  we  must  seize  the  occasion 
to  emphasize  the  value  of  wise  methods,  and,  above  all,  the  vital  needs 
of  thorogh  Civil  Service  reform. 

But  Civil  Service  reform  is  the  special  abhorrence  of  most  of  the 
leaders  in  the  movement  for  annexation.  The  petty  offices  the  Philip 
pines  promise  are  the  basis  of  half  their  influence.  The  promises  of 
the  Administration  lavishly  scattered  before  nomination  as  before 
election  are  still  far  in  excess  of  their  fulfillment.  Because  of  these 
outstanding  promises  our  volunteer  army  has  been  cheapened  and 
disgraced.  Is  there  any  promise  of  better  things  when  civil  rule  in 
the  Islands  shall  succeed  martial  law  and  the  natives  are  turned  over 
to  "amateur  experimenters  in  colonial  administration  ?  " 

As  a  matter  of  fact  we  know  that  the  pressure  of  the  spoilsman 
has  been  and  is  greater  than  most  Presidents  can  resist.  The  appoint 
ment  of  civil  officials  in  the  Philippines  means  the  carnival  of  the 
spoilsmen.  The  United  States  must  prepare  itself  for  scandal  and 
corruption  in  greater  measure  than  it  has  ever  yet  known.  Already 
such  scandals  are  ripening  at  Manila,  if  we  may  trust  the  guarded 
language  of  our  volunteer  soldiers.  The  "embalmed"  beef  and  the 
rotten  commissaries  are  only  the  first  instalment.  What  shall  follow 
will  not  be  more  fragrant.  The  universities  of  California  have  more 
than  one  hundred  men  in  the  ranks  at  Manila  to-day,  men  of  culture 
and  education,  volunteers  who  rushed  forward  at  the  call  of  their 
country.  Over  these  men  are  some  officers  brave  and  manly,  a  few 
of  them  even  trained  for  their  business.  But  those  officers  placed 
in  authority  over  our  patriotic  soldiers  are  not  always  gentlemen. 
Too  many  of  them  are  men  to  whom  in  civil  life  these  same 
volunteers  would  not  entrust  their  dogs.  Who  is  to  blame  for 
this?  Who  organized  the  army  to  place  political  pull  in  place  of  the 
training  of  West  Point  ?  Had  our  volunteers  been  sent  to  Cuba  or 
Manila  with  only  corporals  chosen  by  themselves  and  not  an  officer 
of  staff  or  line,  brave  as  some  of  the  latter  were,  they  would  have 
made  as  good  a  record  as  is  shown  to-day.  Officers  competent  to 
lead,  willing  to  share  privations,  could  accomplish  anything  with  these 
soldiers.  The  tinsel  sons  of  politicians  were  an  insult  to  patriotism. 
The  feeling  of  the  volunteer  army  to-day  is  that^f  men  insulted  on 
every  side.  Compare  this  with  the  feeling  of  the  men  who  came 
home  from  Appomattox  in  1865;  and  the  difference  is  not  in  the 
soldiers  ;  it  is  the  work  of  the  spoilsman. 

The  American  soldier  will  gladly  suffer  every  hardship  necessary 
in  the  work  on  which  his  country  sends  him.  Under  real  offi 
cers,  men  whose  special  training  makes  their  orders  effective,  men, 

50 


who  are  not  afraid  to  live  or  die  in  his  company,  he  will  face  every 
danger.  But  he  will  not  willingly  endure  imposed  hardships  which 
serve  no  purpose  and  which  he  thinks  due  to  carelessness  or  greed, 
nor  under  pasteboard  officers  who  riot  in  luxury  while  he  rots  in  the 
swamps. 

Very  soon  the  preacher,  the  economist,  and  the  politician  who 
now  work  together  for  expansion  shall  part  company.  The  politician 
does  not  enter  the  Philippines  to  convert  the  heathen — unless,  indeed, 
he  can  convert  them  into  coin.  He  is  there  for  the  same  reason  that 
the  Spaniards  were,  what  he  can  make  out  of  it.  He  has  shown  no 
signs  of  repentance  in  the  matter  of  spoils.  He  has  not  joined  the 
economist  in  devising  schemes  for  a  purified  automatic  colonial  Civil 
Service.  When  he  is  mustered  out  from  one  place  he  must  be  cared 
for  somewhere  else. 

Let  me  give  an  illustration  or  two  from  past  experience. 
Some  ten  or  twelve  years  ago  Congress  made  an  effort  to  protect  the 
buffalo  herd  in  the  Yellowstone  Park.  To  this  end  provision  was 
made  for  a  certain  number  of  experts  to  act  as  Keepers  of  the  Park. 
Professor  Baird,  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  wished  to  have  these 
Keepers  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  trained  naturalists,  that  the  Park 
might  be  investigated  while  the  animals  were  cared  for.  He  asked  me 
to  nominate  one  of  these  and  my  choice  fell  on  a  young  man,  a  person 
of  eminent  fitness,  a  doctor  of  philosophy  in  Zoology  and  a  man  of 
physical  strength  and  woodcraft.  He  is  now  curator  in  the  Field 
Columbian  Museum  at  Chicago.  When  the  Congressman  from  his 
district  in  Indiana  learned  of  this  choice  he  demanded  the  right  to 
make  it  himself.  This  the  appointing  power  dared  not  refuse,  and 
the  Congressman  proceeded  to  redeem  his  outstanding  promises.  He 

first  chose  a  man   named  C n,  who  could  not  accept  as  he  was 

serving   a   sentence    in    the    Monroe    County  jail    for   larceny.     His 

second  choice,  H n,  received  the  notice  of  his  appointment  while 

under  nrrest  for  riding  a  mule  into  a  Martinsville  saloon  on  Sunday 

morning.     The  mule  was  sober  and  would  not  go  in.     H n  died 

of  alcoholism  at  Mammoth  Hot  Springs,  and  the  buffaloes  were 
slaughtered  in  the  Absarokie  Hills  unprotected  and  unavenged. 

In  1890  the  Census  Bureau  asked  me  to  send  them  an  expert 
in  fishery  matters,  at  a  low  salary,  below  that  offered  in  the  classified 
service.  I  suggested  the  name  of  a  young  man  from  Kansas.  At 
once  the  representative  from  Topeka  claimed  the  appointment.  He 
had  promised  the  first  plum  that  fell  to  his  district  to  Major  Somebody, 
and  the  Major  must  have  it.  So  the  Census  Bureau  was  obliged  to 
find  in  the  Post  Office  Department  a  position  at  the  same  salary  for 
the  Major.  This  the  Major  declined  in  indignant  disgust. 

51 


Meanwhile  the  census  of  the  marine  industries  went  on  in  the 
hands  of  men  grotesquely  incompetent.  They  were  set  to  doing 
things  that  could  not  be  done.  They  copied  their  figures  from  the 
magnificent  census  report  of  1880.  They  made  statistics  at  random, 
which  were  changed  in  the  Bureau  itself  to  tally  with  the  records  of 
1880.  The  expert  wrote  me:  "However  little  confidence  the  outside 
public  has  in  our  census  figures,  it  is  vastly  greater  than  the  confidence 
of  anyone  inside  the  Bureau."  Finally  he  resigned  in  disgust.  The 
resignation  was  not  accepted.  Then  he  brought  charges  of  incompe 
tence  and  falsification  against  the  chief  of  the  division  and  all  his 
clerks  and  enumerators  save  one  or  two.  On  investigation  all  were 
dismissed  and  the  expert  was  directed  to  compile  the  census  of  the 
fisheries  for  1890  from  the  report  of  the  Fish  Commission  for  1888. 
The  sound  and  thorough  work  of  Willcox  and  Alexander  was  thus 
utilized,  but  the  whole  manuscript  of  the  Census  Bureau  on  the  same 
subject  costing  several  thousands  of  dollars  went  into  the  waste 
basket.  The  courage  of  one  clerk  saved  us  from  trusting  for  our 
information  to  a  lot  of  "  amateur  experimenters"  in  statistics. 

The  appointment  of  drunken  idlers  to  positions  of  trust  was  an 
every-day  affair  in  all  departments  not  many  years  ago.  The  Civil 
Service  regulations  have  saved  the  minor  positions,  but  at  the  same 
time  they  have  intensified  the  pressure  on  those  above  the  classified 
list.  It  is  a  maxim  of  our  politics  that  anybody  will  do  for  positions 
outside  the  country  or  where  newspapers  do  not  send  their  reporters. 
All  of  last  year  the  parlors  of  the  White  House  were  crowded  every 
day  with  vulgar  incompetents,  and  the  Senators  forced  to  stand  as 
their  unwilling  sponsors.  Every  one  familiar  with  the  facts  knows 
that  the  day  of  appointments  for  merit  only  has  not  yet  come  to 
Washington.  I  have  purposely  chosen  two  cases  from  another 
administration.  I  can  parallel  both  of  these  from  the  present  one. 
I  see  in  Mexico  the  President  and  his  advisers  using  every  effort  to 
select  a  wise  and  effective  successor  to  Matias  Romero,  their  accom 
plished  and  manly  Ambassador  at  Washington.  They  have  found, 
at  last,  such  a  man  worthy  of  their  country  and  ours.  When  we  have 
chosen  Ministers  to  Mexico,  with  one  exception,  Pacheco  (himself  a 
Spanish-Californian),  not  one  of  them  has  understood  the  language 
of  the  country  to  which  he  was  sent.  Fitness  does  not  interest  our 
politicians.  The  President  at  the  best  is  almost  helpless  in  the  hands  of 
the  Congressional  influence.  The  Administration  has  rarely  tried  to 
rise  above  it.  In  the  international  commissions  only,  useless  and 
belated  as  most  of  them  have  been,  can  we  see  an  effort  to  secure 
the  best  service  possible.  This  fact  we  must  recognize,  and  I  do  so 
with  real  satisfaction. 


We  may  counsel  together,  economists  and  preachers;  we  may 
discuss  in  conventions  the  wise  management  of  alien  colonies;  we 
may  pass  our  virtuous  resolutions;  we  may  analyze  the  successes  of 
the  Dutch  and  the  failures  of  the  French,  but  our  masters  care  not 
for  our  discussions  and  our  resolutions.  Even  now  the  rough  riders 
of  our  politics  do  not  conceal  their  contempt  of  the  whole  business  of 
good  government.  They  are  not  in  the  Philippines  "for  their 
health/'  and  our  mugwump  remonstrances  are  but  as  the  idle  wind 
which  they  regard  not. 

But  the  deed  is  not  yet  accomplished.  I  have  tried  to  keep  up 
with  the  progress  of  events,  but  I  have  never  heard  that  we  have  con 
stitutionally  annexed  any  territories  since  we  absorbed  the  little  nation 
of  Hawaii. 

But  if  annexation  is  our  final  decision,   the  nation  must  begin  at    ]/ 
once  its  life  and  death  grapple  with  spoilsmen  in  high  places  as  well 
as  in  low. 

We  are  told  that  the  Philippine  question  is  bringing  our  best 
men  forward  and  that  it  therefore,  furnishes  a  needed  "  stimulus 
to  higher  politics,"  But  the  higher  politics  has  not  yet  been  shown 
in  our  official  action.  It  appears  only  in  the  earnest  protest  of  all 
classes  of  men  who  look  forward  to  the  inevitable  disaster.  Their 
warning  voices  are  outside  of  politics. 

Admitting,  however,  that  somewhere  or  other  a  reason  exists  for 
taking  the  Philippines;  admitting   that   we   have  extinguished   Agui-  ,     / 
naldo  somehow  by  gold  or  by  sword,  what  shall  we  do  with  them  ? 

Shall  we  hold  them  as  vassal  nations,  subject  to  the  sovereign 
will  of  Congress  ?  Shall  we  make  them  territories,  self-governing  so 
far  as  may  be  under  republican  forms  ?  Shall  we  devise  tariffs  and 
other  statutes  in  their  interest  alone  or  shall  we  extend  to  them 
unchanged  our  protective  tariff,  our  navigation  laws,  and  our  Chinese 
Exclusion  Act  just  as  they  stand,  without  modification  ?  At  this  I/ 
point  the  Annexationists  fall  apart  one  from  another.  To  hold  the 
Philippines  as  a  vassal  nation  is  Imperialism.  It  is  the  method  of 
Great  Britain  and  Holland.  Its  justification  is  its  success.  It 
teaches  respect  for  law,  which  is  the  first  essential  in  industrial 
development.  It  holds  the  open  door  which  is  the  first  essential  to 
commerce. 

In  promoting  industrial  progress  in  the  tropics  we  have  two 
successful  models :  wealth  through  enforced  labor  and  through 
contract  labor.  Neither  of  these  is  slavery,  as  Mr.  Ireland  has 
pointed  out,  but  the  distinction  is  not  one  worth  wrangling  over. 
Java,  with  law  and  order,  perfect  cultivation,  fine  roads  and  great 
industrial  activity,  the  fairest  garden  in  all  the  world,  furnishes  the 

53 


highest  type  of  industrial  success.  The  Island  is  one  vast  plantation, 
owned  by  the  kingdom  of  Holland,  The  natives  have  lost  the  title 
to  the  land  and  can  not  buy  nor  sell  it.  The  natives  pay  their  taxes 
to  the  government  in  work  ;  the  labor  is  obligatory  and  the  obligation 
is  enforced  by  law.  In  such  manner  the  people  are  rescued  from 
natural  indolence.  There  is  prosperity  everywhere.  The  State 
derives  a  large  revenue,  the  people  are  relatively  contented,  though 
a  stranger  to  the  idea  of  freedom.  With  politics  the  native  has 
nothing  to  do.  Missionaries  are  excluded  from  the  island  and  the 
people  have  only  to  work  as  they  are  told,  and  enjoy  themselves  as 
they  can.  "  This  may  not  be  republicanism,  but  it  is  business." 

This  is  a  way  to  a  certain  prosperity  in  the  Philippines,  but  with 
Ais  it  is  not  a  possible  way.  Our  temper,  our  traditions,  our  machinery 
of  government  leave  no  room  for  such  despotic  paternalism.  Even 
this  method  has  failed  in  other  Dutch  colonies.  It  fails  with  the 
negroes  in  the  Dutch  colony  of  Surinam.  In  the  midst  of  the  coffee 
harvest  the  people  go  off  to  the  woods  for  a  month  of  devil  worship. 
The  spell  comes  on  them  and  off  they  go.  The  only  recourse  of  the 
plantation  owners  is  to  bring  contract  labor  from  China  or  Japan. 
This  method  has  failed  in  Sumatra  where  the  natives  still  hold  out 
against  the  civilization  that  would  make  money  out  of  their  work. 

Only  through  coolie  contract  labor  has  industrial  success  in  any 
of  the  British  West  Indies  been  possible.  The  natives  will  not  work 
continuously  unless  they  are  forced  to  work  as  slaves.  But  contract 
labor  from  the  outside  means  the  ultimate  extermination  of  the 
natives  themselves. 

In  tropical  Mexico  the  industrial  situation  is  not  much  better. 
The  great  haciendas  in  the  sugar  and  coffee  region,  cheap  as  labor  is 
six  to  ten  cents  a  day),  are  never  sure  of  help  when  needed.  Even 
now  Senor  Wollheim,  Mexican  Minister  n  Japan,  is  arranging  for  Jap 
anese  contract  laborers  to  work  the  great  coffee  plantations  of  Chiapas 
and  Tabasco.  Enforced  labor  of  the  natives,  contract  labor  from  the 
outside — between  these  we  must  choose,  if  the  tropics  are  made 
economically  profitable.  Both  systems  are  forms  of  slavery,  but 
slavery  is  endemic  in  the  tropics.  Freedom  in  the  warm  countries 
means  freedom  from  work,  but  without  work  there  is  no  wealth  in 
mines  or  sugar. 

"  If  the  Antilles  are  ever  to  thrive,"  says  James  Anthony  Froude 
(as  quoted  by  Mr.  Ireland),  "  each  of  them  should  have  some 
trained  and  skilful  man  at  its  head  unembarrassed  by  local  elected 
assemblies  .  .  .  Let  us  persist  in  the  other  line,  let  us  use  the 
West  Indian  governments  as  asylums  for  average  worthy  per 
sons  to  be  provided  for,  and  force  on  them  black  parliamentary  insti- 

54 


Of 


tutions  as  a  remedy  for  such  persons  '  inefficiency,  and  these  B^*fc..;j 
tiful  countries  will  become  like   Hayti    with  Obeah   triumphant   and 
children  offered  to  the  devil  and  salted  and  eaten,  and  the  conscience 
of  mankind  wakes  again  and  the  Americans  sweep  them  all  away." 

Concerning  Dominica,  Mr.  Froude  says:  "Find  a  Rajah 
Brooke  if  you  can,  or  a  Mr.  Smith  of  Scilly  .  .  .  Send  him  out 
with  no  more  instructions  than  the  Knight  of  La  Mancha  gave 
Sancho, — to  fear  God  and  do  his  duty.  Put  him  on  his  metal. 
Promise  him  the  praise  of  all  good  men  if  he  does  well ;  and  if  he 
calls  to  his  help  intelligent  persons  who  understand  the  cultivation  of 
soils  and  the  management  of  men,  in  half  a  score  of  years  Dominica  will 
be  the  brightest  gem  of  the  Antilles  .  .  .  The  leading  of  the  wise  few, 
the  willing  obedience  of  the  many  is  the  beginning  and  end  of  all  right 
action.  Secure  this  and  you  secure  everything.  Fail  to  secure  this 
and  be  your  liberties  as  wide  as  you  can  make  them,  no  success  is 
possible." 

This  ideal  of  Mr.  Froude  is  not  without  precedent  in  American 
Colonial  affairs.  The  wonderful  development  of  New  Metlakahtla  by 
William  Duncan  is  the  perfection  of  wise  paternalism.  Its  failure 
lies  in  its  certain  collapse  when  the  strong  hand  of  the  founder  is 
withdrawn.  The  rule  of  the  Pribilof  Islands  is  the  same  in  theory, 
and  under  competent  men,  as  it  is  to-day,  it  works  well  in  practice. 
But  government  by  rulers  not  responsible  to  the  people  they  rule  is 
Imperialism.  It  is  contrary  to  our  ways  and  traditions,  and  our  news 
papers  and  politicians  alike  hasten  to  repudiate  it.  It  is,  in  fact, 
industrial  success  at  the  expense  of  political  development.  The 
alternative  is  to  bring  the  Philippines  into  politics,  to  endow  them 
with  the  rights  of  our  citizens,  to  give  them  the  services  of  our  own 
politicians  and  let  natives  and  carpet-baggers  work  out  their  own 
salvation  under  our  forms  of  law.  I  cannot  imagine  any  government 
much  worse  than  this  might  be,  but  it  is  safer  than  Imperialism,  if 
these  lands  and  these  people  become  a  part  of  our  democratic 
nation.  If  we  must  choose,  let  us  stick  to  republican  forms.  A 
folly  is  always  better  than  a  crime.  Confusion,  bankruptcy,  and 
failure  probably  are  better  in  the  long  run  than  Imperialism.  They 
are  more  easily  cured.  America  has  ideals  in  civil  government  and  to 
these  she  must  be  loyal.  The  Union  can  never  endure  "  half  slave, 
half  free,"  half  democracy,  half  empire.  We  cannot  run  a  republic 
in  the  West  and  a  slave  plantation  in  the  East.  We  must  set  our 
bondsmen  free,  however  unready  they  may  be  for  freedom.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  our  forms  of  law,  the  evolution  of  ages,  are  ill  fitted 
for  the  needs  of  primitive  men.  Doubtless  it  would  be  better  for 
themselves  to  work  out  their  own  destiny  as  we  have  worked  out  ours. 

55 


But  if  they  join  us,  they  must  take  up  with  our  fashions  because  we 
cannot  adapt  ourselves  to  theirs. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  is,  doubtless,  the  grandest  of  races,  pushing, 
effective,  successful.  But  it  is  not  the  most  lovable,  the  most  con 
siderate,  nor  the  most  just  when  it  covets  what  another  possesses. 
Most  Anglo-Saxon  achievements  are  justified  only  by  success.  "  The 
efforts  of  our  Anglo-Saxon  nations,"  says  Professor  Lewis  G.  Janes, 
"to  civilize  inferior  races  by  force  have  always  been  tragic  failures. 
Witness  New  Zealand  where  about  40,000  Maoris  survive  out  of 
700,000  who  were  there  a  century  ago  ...  It  is  not  the  testi 
mony  of  history  that  the  best  survive.  The  strongest  and  ablest 
resist  and  are  killed  off.  Those  lacking  in  vitality  who  supinely 
submit  to  the  inevitable  are  the  ones  who  survive  ...  It  is  the 
fate  of  all  people  on  whom  conditions  of  life  are  forced  in  advance 
of  their  functional  development.  Does  the  tragedy  of  the  passing 
of  these  peoples  bring  any  adequate  compensation  to  the  world?  The 
sociologist  and  ethical  teacher  is  compelled  to  say  no.  It  brutalizes 
and  depraves  the  conqueror.  It  perpetuates  despotic  methods  of 
government.  It  prolongs  the  evil  region  of  militancy.  It  debases 
labor  and  gives  rise  to  class  distinctions. 

"The  Maoris,  the  Hawaiians,  the  Filipinos,  the  Cubans,  are  all 
more  competent  to  rule  themselves  than  we  are  to  govern  them, 
judged  by  any  test  that  implies  their  permanent  betterment  and  sur 
vival  as  a  people.  We  have  begun  at  the  wrong  end  in  our  efforts  to 
civilize  the  world  .  .  .  The  path  of  conquest  is  gory  with  the  blood 
of  victors  and  victims  alike." 

<l  True  liking  between  colors  is  impossible,"  says  the  London 
Spectator,  But  this  may  depend  on  how  the  man  of  white  color 
behaves  himself. 

Says  Gold  win  Smith  :  "If  empire  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  field 
for  philanthropic  effort  and  the  advancement  of  civilization,  it  may 
safely  be  said  that  nothing  in  that  way  equals,  or  ever  has  equalled, 
the  British  Empire  in  India.  For  the  last  three-quarters  of  a  century, 
at  all  events,  the  empire  has  steadily  administered  in  the  interest  of 
Hindu.  Yet  what  is  the  result?  Two  hundred  millions  of  human 
sheep,  without  native  leadership,  without  patriotism,  without  aspira 
tions,  without  spur  to  self  improvement  of  any  kind  ;  multiplying, 
too  many  of  them,  in  abject  poverty  and  infantile  dependence  on  a 
government  which  their  numbers  and  necessities  will  too  probably  in 
the  end  overwhelm.  Great  Britain  has  deserved  and  won  the  respect  of 
the  Hindu;  but  she  has  never  won,  and  is  now  perhaps  less  likely  than 
ever  to  win,  his  love.  Lord  Elgin  sorrowfully  observes  that  there  is 
more  of  a  bond  between  man  and  dog  than  between  Englishman  and 

56 


Hindu.  The  natives  generally  having  been  disarmed  cannot  rise  against 
the  conqueror,  and  their  disaffection  is  shown  only  in  occasional  and 
local  outbreaks,  chiefly  of  a  religious  character,  or  in  the  impotent 
utterances  of  the  native  press.  But  the  part  of  the  population  which 
was  armed,  that  is  to  say  the  Sepoys,  did  break  out  into  what  was 
rather  an  insurrection  of  caste  than  a  military  mutiny,  and  committed 
atrocities  which  were  fearfully  avenged  by  the  panic  fears  of  the 
dominant  race.  It  is  perilous  business  all  round,  this  of  governing 
inferior  races.  Nor  is  it  true  that  the  work  is  done  better  by  the 
highest  race  than  by  one  upon  a  lower  level,  to  wnich  it  is  not  so 
impossible  to  sympathize  or  even  fuse  with  the  lowest.  '  Some  of  the 
tribes  of  the  Philippines  are  said  to  be  as  fierce  as  Apaches.  It  that 
is  all  Uncle  Sam  will  handle  them  in  his  accustomed  style.'  Is  not  a 
warning  conveyed  in  such  words  ?  Dire  experience  has  shown  that 
the  character  of  the  matter  suffers  as  well  as  the  body  of  the  slave 

"War,  the  almost  certain  concomitant  of  empire,  is  alleged  to 
have  a  more  blessed  effect  on  the  internal  harmony  of  nations.  This 
we  are  told  not  only  in  the  press,  but  free  from  the  pulpit  ;  some  going 
even  so  far  as  to  intimate  that  the  restoration  of  national  harmony  was 
a  sufficient  object  for  this  war.  The  moral  world  would  be  strangely 
out  of  joint  if  a  nation  could  cure  itself  of  factiousness  or  of  an 
internal  disorder  by  shedding  the  biood  and  seizing  the  poss-ssi  ms  of 
its  neighbors.  War  has  no  such  virtue.  Tne  victories  of  the 
Plantagenets  in  France  were  followed  by  insurrections  and  civil  wars 
at  home,  largely  owing  to  the  spirit  of  violence  which  the  nids  of 
France  had  excited.  The  victories  of  Chatham  were  followed  by 
disgraceful  scenes  of  cabal  and  faction  as  well  as  of  corruption, 
terminating  in  the  prostration  of  patriotism  and  the  domination  of 
George  III  and  North.  Party  animosities  in  the  United  Suues  do 
not  seem  to  have  been  banished  or  even  allayed  by  the  Cuban  War. 
Setting  party  divisions  aside,  no  restoration  of  harmony  appeared 
to  be  needed,  so  far  as  the  white  population  was  concerned.  Not 
only  peace,  but  good-will,  between  the  North  and  the  South  had  been 
restored  in  a  surprising  degree.  The  Blue  and  the  Gray  had  frater 
nized  on  the  field  of  Gettysburg.  It  was  to  harmonize  white  and 
black  that  some  kindly  influence  was  manifestly  and  urgently  needed. 
But  all  through  the  war  and  since  the  war  American  papers  have  been 
almost  daily  recording  cases  of  lynching,  sometimes  of  such  a  char 
acter  as  to  evince  the  last  extremity  of  hatred  and  contempt  The 
negro  is  lympathetic,  apathetic,  patient  of  degradation  and  even  of 
insult.  But  San  Domingo  saw  that  he  had  a  tiger  in  him  ;  and  when 
the  tiger  broke  loose,  hell  ensued.  There  has  been  at  least  one 
instance  of  the  retaliatory  lynching  of  a  white  man  ;  and  now  we  have 

57 


a  bloody  battle  of  races  at  Virden.  Why  should  the  American 
Commonwealth  want  more  negroes?  " 

It  is  said  that  we  must  conquer  Aguinaldo  because  he  in  turn  is 
unable  to  subdue  the  rest  of  the  four  hundred  or  fourteen  hundred 
islands.  We  tolerate  two  republics  in  Hayti  and  five  in  Central 
America.  What  matter  if  two  or  three  exist  in  the  vast  extent  of  the 
Philippine  Archipelago  ?  What  business  is  that  of  ours  ?  These 
wide-scattered  islands  never  constituted  one  nation  and  never  will. 
The  most  of  them  were  never  in  the  hands  of  Spain,  except  in  name. 
Outside  of  Luzon  there  are  thirty-two  different  tribes,  it  is  said,  each 
a  little  nation  of  itself,  each  speaking  a  different  tongue.  So  far 
from  being  "paralyzed  by  centuries  of  Spanish  oppression  "  as  the 
editor  of  the  "Outlook"  describes  them,  most  of  these  wild  folks 
have  never  heard  of  Spain.  What  harm  if  our  "new-caught  "  vassal 
the  Mohammedan  Sultan  of  Sulu  shall  continue  to  rule  his  Moham 
medan  tribes  in  Mohammedan  fashion  ?  We  must  let  him  do  it  any 
how.  Wre  cannot  do  it  any  better.  Why  not  a  republic  of  Visayas  as 
well  as  a  republic  of  Luzon?  If  separate  autonomy  suits  the  people 
/  concerned  why  should  we  fight  for  unification  ?  Do  we  believe  that 
\  /  Spanish  rule  was  better  than  freedom  ?  These  wild  tribes  must  work 
out  their  own  destiny  or  else  go  into  slavery.  Perhaps  the  latter  is 
their  manifest  destiny.  There  is  no  reason  why  we  should  make  it  ours. 

As  I  have  said  many  times,  the  function  of  democracy  is  not  to 
secure  good  government,  but  to  strengthen  the  people  so  that  they 
may  be  wise  enough  to  make  good  government  for  themselves.  Not 
long  ago,  at  the  Congress  of  Religions  in  Omaha,  I  had  occasion  to 
say  : 

That  government  is  best  that  makes  the  best  men.  In  the 
training  of  manhood  lies  the  certain  pledge  of  better  government  in 
the  future.  The  civic  problems  of  the  future  will  be  greater  than 
those  of  the  past.  They  will  concern  not  the  relation  of  nation  to 
nation,  but  of  man  to  man.  The  policing  of  far-off  islands,  the 
herding  of  baboons  and  elephants,  the  maintenance  of  the  machinery 
of  Imperialism — all  are  petty  things  beside  what  the  higher  freedom 
demands.  To  turn  to  those  empty  and  showy  affairs  is  to  neglect  our 
own  business  for  the  gossip  of  our  neighbors. 

Men  say  that  we  want  nobler  political  problems  than  those  we 
have.  We  are  tired  of  our  tasks  "artificial  and  transient/' 
"insufferably  parochial,"  and  seek  some  new  ones  worthy  of 
our  national  bigness.  I  have  no  patience  with  such  talk  as 
this.  The  greatest  political  problems  the  world  has  ever  known 
are  ours  to-day,  and  still  unsolved — the  problems  of  free  men 
in  freedom.  Because  these  are  hard  and  trying  we  would  shirk 

58 


them  in  order  to  meddle  with  the  affairs  of  our  weak-minded  neigh 
bors.  So  we  are  tired  of  the  labor  problem,  the  race  problem,  the 
corporation  problem,  the  problem  of  coinage  and  of  municipal 
government.  Then  let  us  turn  to  the  politics  of  Guam  and  Min 
danao,  and  let  our  own  difficulties  settle  themselves!  Shame  on  our 
cowardice!  Are  the  politics  of  Luzon  cleaner  than  those  of  New 
York?  We  would  give  our  blood  to  our  country,  would  we  not?  + 
Then  let  us  give  her  our  brains.  More  than  the  blood  of  heroes  she 
needs  the  brains  of  men. 

"  Insufferably  parochial,"  the  affairs  of  free  men  must  ever  be. 
The  best  government  is  that  which  best  minds  its  own  business.  Our 
own  affairs  are  always  local  and  devoid  of  world  interest.  Only 
through  usurpation  and  tyranny  do  governmental  affairs  attract  the 
fickle  notice  of  the  world  public. 

The  political  greatness  of  England  has  never  lain  in  her  navies 
nor  the  force  of  her  arms.  It  has  lain  in  her  struggle  for  individual 
freedom.  Not  Marlborough,  nor  Wellington,  nor  Grenville  is  its 
exponent.  Let  us  say,  rather,  Pym  and  Hampden,  Maine  and  Black- 
stone,  Herbert  Spencer  and  John  Bright.  The  real  problems  of 
England  have  always  been  at  home.  The  pomp  of  Imperialism,  the 
display  of  naval  power,  the  commercial  control  of  India  and  China, 
all  these  are  as  "  the  bread  and  circuses,"  by  which  the  Roman 
Emperors  kept  the  mobs  from  their  thrones.  They  kept  the  people 
busy  and  put  off  the  day  of  final  reckoning.  "  Gild  the  dome  of  the 
Invalides,"  was  Napoleon's  cynical  command  when  he  learned  that 
the  people  of  Paris  were  becoming  desperate.  The  people  of 
England  seek  for  a  higher  justice,  a  worthier  freedom,  and  so  the 
ruling  ministry  crowns  the  good  Queen  as  Empress  of  India. 

Meanwhile,  the  real  problems  of  civilization  develop  and  ripen. 
They  care  nothing  for  the  greatness  of  empire  or  the  glitter  of  Im 
perialism.  They  must  be  solved  by  men,  and  each  man  must 
help  solve  his  own  problem. 

The  question  is  not  whether  Great  Britain  or  the  United  States 
has  the  better  form  of  Government  or  the  nobler  civic  mission.  There 
is  room  in  the  world  for  two  types  of  Anglo-Saxon  nations,  and  noth 
ing  has  yet  happened  to  show  that  civilization  would  gain  if  either 
were  to  take  up  the  function  of  the  other.  We  may  not  belittle  the 
tremendous  services  of  England  in  the  enforcement  of  laws  amid 
barbarism.  We  may  not  deny  that  every  aggression  of  hers  on  weaker 
nations  results  in  at  least  some  good  to  the  conquered,  but  we  in 
sist  that  our  own  function  of  turning  masses  into  men,  of  "  knowing 
men  by  name,"  is  as  noble  as  the  function  of  the  open  door.  The 
real  "  white  man's  burden  "  is  not  the  control  of  delinquent  and  de- 

59 


V 


pendent  races,  the  turning  of  indolence  into  gold.  It  is  the  devel 
opment  of  what  is  sound  and  sane  in  human  nature,  the  elimination 
of  war  and  corruption  by  the  force  of  healthy  manhood.  Better  for 
the  world  that  the  whole  British  Empire  should  be  dissolved,  as  it 
must  be  late  or  soon,*  than  that  the  United  States  should  forget  her 
own  mission  in  a  mad  chase  of  emulation.  He  reads  history  to  little 
purpose  who  finds  in  Imperial  dominion,  for  dominion's  sake,  a  result, 
a  cause,  or  even  a  sign  of  national  greatness. 

We  may  have  navy  and  coaling  stations  to  meet  our  commercial 
needs  without  entering  on  colonial  expansion.  It  takes  no  war  to 
accomplish  this  honorably.  Whatever  land  we  may  need  in  our 
business  we  may  buy  in  the  open  market  as  we  buy  coal.  If  the 
owners  will  accept  our  price  it  needs  no  Imperialism  to  foot  the  bills. 
But  the  question  of  such  need  is  one  for  commercial  experts,  not  for 
politicians.  Our  decision  should  be  in  the  interest  of  commerce,  not 
of  sea  power.  We  need,  no  doubt,  navy  enough  to  protect  us  from 
insults,  even  though  every  battle-ship  Charles  Sumner  pointed  out 
fifty  years  ago,  costs  as  much  as  Harvard  College,  and  though 
schools,  not  battle-ships,  make  the  strength  of  the  United  States.  We 
have  drawn  more  strength  from  Harvard  College  than  from  a 
thousand  men-of-war.  Once  Spain  owned  some  battle-ships  as  many 
and  as  strong  as  ours,  but  she  had  no  men  of  science  to  handle  them. 
A  British  fleet  bottled  up  in  Santiago  or  Cavite  would  have  given  a 
very  different  account  of  itself.  It  is  men,  not  ships  which  make  a 
navy.  It  is  our  moral  and  material  force,  our  brains  and  character 
and  ingenuity  and  wealth  that  makes  America  a  power  among  the 
nations,  not  her  battle-ships.  These  are  only  visible  symptoms, 
designed  to  impress  the  ignorant  or  incredulous.  The  display  of 
force  saves  us  from  insults  —  from  those  who  do  not  know  our  mettle. 

Annexationists  now  admit  that  the  seizure  of  the  Philippines  is  a 
"leap  in  the  dark."  But  this  is  not  the  truth.  Every  element  in 
the  matter  is  known,  and  well  known,  to  every  student  of  political 
science.  Our  excellent  commission  can  bring  us  no  new  facts. 
What  we  do  not  know  is  which  way  Congress  may  decide  to  leap. 
Between  military  rule  and  democratic  anarchy  there  is  all  the  differ 
ence  in  the  world,  and  the  degree  of  our  final  disappointment 
depends  on  our  policy  as  to  conciliation,  taxation,  and  the  control  of 
the  Civil  Service. 

Just  when  shall  we  begin  democratic  rule  in  the  Philippines? 
How  shall  we  make  it  work  with  a  people  alien  and  perverse,  who 

*  "  England  must  take  all  her  colonies  into  political  copartnership  (of  taxation 
and  of  responsibility)  or  else  abandon  them,  or  in  the  end  be  crushed  by  the  burden 
of  their  care." 

60 


have  no  Anglo-Saxon  instincts  and  no  relation  to  our  history  ?  It  will 
take  some  time,  some  say  20  years,  some  500,  of  military  discipline 
to  prepare  them  to  do  their  part  as  citizens  of  the  United  States,  their 
part  in  governing  us.  Military  rule  is  offensive  and  costly.  The 
longer  it  endures  the  less  fitted  are  the  people  for  civic  independence. 
Are  we  ready  to  meet  the  expense  ?  Some  say  that  we  must  wait  till  the 
Anglo-Saxon  is  in  the  numerical  majority.  That  time  will  never 
come.  With  every  rod  of  Luzon  soil  marked  by  an  Anglo-Saxon 
grave,  the  living  Anglo-Saxons  would  be  a  hopeless  minority. 

If  we  go  further  into  details  of  control  of  the  tropics  we  shall  see 
that  difficulties  accumulate.  When  we  consider  a  tariff  policy  for  the 
Philippine  Islands  we  find  ourselves  at  once  between  the  devil  and 
the  deep  sea.  The  "  open  door"  is  the  price  of  England's  favor,  or 
rather  it  is  the  price  of  the  approval  of  England's  ruling  politicians. 
It  is  the  price  of  our  own  commerce.  A  generous  policy  as  to  foreign 
trade  is  essential  to  any  kind  of  prosperity.  But  the  open  door  to 
commerce  marks  the  doom  of  our  protective  system.  It  is  left  for 
Imperialism  to  give  the  death  blow  to  Protectionism.  The  open  door 
places  the  veto  on  our  schemes  for  Asiatic  exclusion.  To  open  the 
doors  of  the  Orient  is  to  open  our  doors  to  Asia  as  well,  To  do  or  not 
to  do  is  alike  difficult  and  dangerous.  The  feeling  that  unless  we 
can  exploit  the  Islands  and  ultimately  exterminate  their  inhabitants 
we  do  not  want  them  at  all  is  growing,  especially  in  humanitarian 
circles.  The  dead  hand  of  monasticism  already  holds  a  great  part  of 
Luzon.  This  we  cannot  tolerate  for  it  was  the  head  and  front  of 
Spanish  oppression,  nor  by  our  Constitution  can  we  remedy  it.  We 
are  bound  to  respect  the  rights  of  property,  however  acquired.  Our 
sole  remedy  for  any  ill  is  freedom.  For  these  problems  I  see  no 
solution,  nor  indeed  should  we  hope  for  any.  If  the  Administration 
should  formulate  any  policy  whatever,  two-thirds  of  the  expansionists 
would  repudiate  it.  There  is  no  scheme  on  which  we  can  agree  which 
can  be  made  to  work. 

"  Something  between  an  American  territory  and  a  British  colony," 
we  are  told,  is  to  be  their  final  condition.  A  territory  is  a  waiting 
State;  a  colony  is  land  held  under  martial  law  or  in  any  other  way  for 
the  good  of  trade.  To  work  for  something  between  these  is  to  fail  on 
every  hand.  As  matters  are,  we  shall  fall  short  of  Imperialism.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  shall  fail  to  give  justice.  The  final  result  will  be  a 
hybrid  military  imperial-democratic  occupation,  unworthy  the  name 
of  government,  the  laughing  stock  of  the  monarchy,  the  shame  of 
democracy.  Toward  such  a  condition  the  movement  of  events  is 
swiftly  rushing  us. 

61 


I  note  in  the  journals  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  his 
estimates  takes  no  account  of  the  revenue  to  be  derived  from  Cuba 
and  the  Philippines.  For  this  the  papers  justly  praise  his  wisdom. 
There  can  be  no  real  revenue  from  these  sources.  The  only  income, 
which  any  people  can  receive  from  colonies  is  through  increase  of 
trade.  This  goes  into  private  hands  but  finally  swells  the  wealth  of 
taxables.  Since  her  experience  in  1776,  England  has  never  taxed 
her  colonies.  The  more  worthless  islands  we  undertake'  to  conquer 
and  rule  the  further  are  we  from  a  favorable  balance  of  accounts. 

We  now  come  to  the  final  question:  If  we  take  the  Philippines, 
what  will  they  do  to  us  ? 

If  we  fail,  they  will  corrupt  and  weaken  us.  If  we  succeed  and 
'  continue  our  success,  they  will  destroy  our  national  ideals.  To  rule 
them  as  a  vassal  nation  is  to  abandon  our  democracy,  to  introduce 
_y  into  our  government  machinery  which  is  not  in  the  people's  hands. 
Shall  we  handle  our  vassals  through  the  President,  through  Congress, 
or  through  military  occupation  ?  Obviously  military  occupation, 
under  the  direction  of  the  Executive,  is  the  only  possible  way. 
Congress  is  too  busy  with  other  things.  Paternalism  degenerates 
into  tyranny,  and  without  the  artificial  stimulus  of  honor  and 
titles  which  England  so  lavishly  uses  tyranny  becomes  corruption  and 
neglect.  To  admit  the  Filipinos  to  equality  in  government  is  to 
degrade  our  own  citizenship  with  only  the  slightest  prospect  of  ever 
raising  theirs.  It  is  to  establish  rotten  boroughs  where  corruption 
shall  be  the  rule  and  true  democracy  impossible.  The  relation 
of  our  people  to  the  lower  races  of  men  of  whatever  kind  has 
been  one  which  degrades  and  exasperates.  Every  alien  race  within 
our  borders  is,  to-day,  an  element  of  danger.  When  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  meets  the  Negro,  the  Chinaman,  the  Indian,  the  Mexican 
as  fellow-citizens,  equal  before  the  law,  we  have  a  raw  wound  in 
our  political  organism.  Democracy  demands  likeness  of  aims  and 
purposes  among  its  units.  Each  citizen  must  hold  his  own  freedom 
in  a  republic.  If  men  cannot  hold  their  rights  through  our  methods 
our  machinery  runs  over  them.  The  Anglo-Saxon  will  not  mix  with 
the  lower  races.  Neither  will  he  respect  their  rights  if  they  are  not 
strong  enough  to  maintain  them  for  themselves.  If  they  can  do  this 
they  cease  to  be  lower  races. 

Between  Imperialism  on  the  one  hand  and  assimilation  on  the 
other,  are  all  unwholesome  possibilities.  An  efficient  colonial  bureau 
would  be  as  in  England  an  affair  of  the  Crown,  its  details  out  of  the 
people's  hands.  An  inefficient  one  would  be  simply  spoils  in  the 
hands  of  future  Tammanies.  Unless  represented  in  Congress  and 
potent  in  party  conventions  outlying  possessions  will  be  wholly  neg- 

62 


lected.  When  the  newspaper  correspondents  are  called  home  no 
body  cares  what  goes  on  in  Cuba  or  Manila.  We  have  not  yet 
framed  a  code  of  laws  for  Hawaii  or  Alaska. 

With  tne  war  in  Luzon  a  certain  class  of  obligations  have  arisen. 
These  should  be  met  in  manly  fashion.  But  the  final  result  should 
/  not  be  a  Philippine  State,  which  shall  rule  itself  and  help  rule  us. 
Still  less  do  we  want  an  oligarchy  of  sugar  syndicates,  or  a  rule  by 
military  force,  or  a  carpet-bag  anarchy  like  that  which  once  desolated 
the  South,  nor  the  equal  corruption  of  rule  under  agents  and  pro 
consuls  sent  out  from  Washington.  These  alternatives  are  all  abhor* 
rent,  and  we  see  no  other  save  that  of  chronic  hopeless  guerilla 
warfare,  the  condition  in  Luzon  to-day,  unless  we  recognize  Philip- 
"'  pine  independence.  This  has  its  embarrassments,  too,  but  they  are 
honorable  ones  and  can  leave  no  disgrace  or  regret. 

The  establishment  of  a  protectorate  over  the  Philippines  has 
many  difficulties.  It  is  on  the  one  hand  a  scheme  for  finally  seiz 
ing  the  Islands,  on  the  other  a  device  to  let  them  go  easily.  If  we 
assume  unasked  responsibilities  for  them,  they  will  be  reckless  in 
making  trouble.  A  protected  republic  is  the  acme  of  irresponsibility. 
Its  politicians  may  declare  war  against  neutral  nations,  solely  "to 
see  the  wheels  go  round. "  As  matters  now  stand  we  have  no  other  course 
before  us,  and  the  blunders  in  dealing  with  Aguinaldo  have  made  this 
course  not  easy.  The  protectorate  is  favored  by  the  best  judgment 
of  the  Filipinos  themselves.  They  ask  the  help  and  sympathy  of 
America. 

Ramon  Reyes  Lala,  a  full-blooded  Filipino,  born  in  Luzon  but 
educated  in  England,  an  American  citizen  of  standing  in  New  York, 
is  quoted  as  saying: 

"Although  I  believe  we  have  a  great  future,  I  cannot  disguise  to 
myself  the  fact  that  we  are  not  yet  ready  for  independence.  More 
especially  because  the  Filipinos  have  not  had  the  preparation  for  self- 
government  possessed  by  the  founders  of  the  American  Republic. 
And  I  apprehend  that,  intoxicated  with  their  new-found  liberty,  the 
Filipinos  might  perpetrate  excesses  that  would  prove  fatal  to  the  race. 
I  feel  this  all  the  more  when  I  consider  that  the  revolutionary  leaders, 
Aguinaldo  and  his  companions,  though  fervent  patriots,  do  not 
represent  the  best  classes  of  my  countrymen,  who,  almost  without 
exception,  are  for  a  protectorate,  or  for  annexation. 

"And  it  is  this  that  I,  too,  a  Filipino,  desire  most  ardently. 
Give  us  an  American  protectorate;  a  territorial  government;  the 
judiciary,  the  customs,  and  the  executive  in  the  hands  of  Federal 
officials  ;  the  interior  and  domestic  administration  in  the  hands  of  the 
Filipinos  themselves;  and  their  self-selected  officials  will  rule  under- 

63 


standingly     and     well     without    friction,    which     would     be    wholly 
impossible  for  alien  functionaries  begotten  of  a  Western  civilization. 

"Of  you,  Americans,  I,  a  Filipino,  therefore,  beg  to  not  leave 
my  countrymen  as  you  found  them!  You  cannot,  in  humanity,  give 
them  back  into  Spanish  bondage.  You  cannot,  in  justice,  sell  them 
to  some  European  power  to  become  subject,  most  likely,  to  another 
tyranny.  They  feel  that  they  have  fought  for  and  won  their  own 
freedom,  though  acknowledging  that  you  have  facilitated  it.  They 
would,  therefore,  oppose  such  disposition  to  the  bitter  death.  And  a 
Filipino  knows  how  to  die!  Let  a  thousand  martyrs  attest! 

"  You  must  help  them,  you  who  have  so  nobly  assisted  in  freeing 
them;  you  must  make  it  possible  for  them  to  attain  their  destiny — the 
realization  of  the  national  self."  * 

As  to  our  true  policy  of  to-day  I  give  the  fullest  endorsement  to 
the  sane  words  of  Professor  Janes,  in  substance  as  follows: 

i.  Let  us  carry  out  the  solemn  pledge  made  to  the  world  with 
respect  to  Cuba,  and  retain  military  possession  only  long  enough  to 
enable  the  Cubans  to  organize  a  government  of  their  own.  We 
have  no  right  to  insist  that  our  own,  or  any  particular  form  of  govern 
ment,  shall  be  adopted  by  the  Cubans,  or  to  impose  qualifications  of 
citizenship  upon  them. 


*  The  following  words  of  Clay  McCauley,  a  British  naturalist,  are  worthy  of 
careful  consideration  in  this  connection  :  "As  a  result  of  a  study  of  the  situation  at 
Manila,  I  think  there  are  only  three  ways  open  to  the  United  States  for  the  solution 
of  the  Philippines  problem.  In  the  first  place  the  Islands  must  be  annexed  by  force 
or  purchase.  The  use  of  force  means  that  the  United  States  will  be  plunged  into 
the  most  disastrous  foreign  war  in  their  history,  a  war  that  would  entail  great  loss 
of  life  and  treasure  and  the  violation  of  national  honor.  Purchase  means  the 
recognition  of  the  insurgents  as  allies  during  the  war  with  Spain,  the  reward  of  the 
leaders  with  high  office  and  salaries,  the  employment  of  insurgents  in  military  and 
civil  offices,  with  back  pay  as  allies  for  some  months,  etc.  Such  purchase  would 
secure  a  compromising  gain  of  doubtful  tenure. 

"  Generally  speaking,  the  Americans  in  Manila  are  opposed  to  annexation  in 
any  form.  The  second  way  open  is  to  make  a  complete  transfer  of  the  sovereignty 
in  these  Islands  from  Spain  to  the  Philippine  Republic,  the  United  States  retaining 
for  its  own  use  Manila  Bay  and  ports — like  Hong  Kong  by  Great  Britain.  This 
solution  means  the  defenseless  exposure  of  the  Philippine  Islands  to  the  greed  of  the 
world's  powers,  with  a  consequent  acute  crisis  in  Europe  over  its  Far  Eastern  ques 
tion.  This  way  is  neither  honorable  nor  wise.  The  third  is  to  recognize  the 
autonomy  of  the  Philippines  under  an  American  protectorate.  This  means  inde 
pendence  for  the  Philippine  Republic  n  the  administration  of  its  own  internal 
affairs,  the  United  States  taking  charge  of  the  supreme  judiciary  and  the  republic's 
foreign  relations,  such  as  the  power  to  declare  war  or  to  enter  into  treaties  with 
foreign  powers  and  the  control  of  the  customs.  This  solution  might  bring  about 
tutelage  towards  absolute  independence  in  the  future  or  voluntary  annexation  to  the 
United  States.  Only  by  the  third  way  can  there  be  peace  and  prosperity  for  both 
the  United  States  ar  :  'he  Ph  lippines.  Immediate  action  is  imperative." 

64 


2.  The  same  rule  should  be  adopted  in  regard  to  Porto  Rico. 

3.  This  government  should  acquire  no  inhabited  country  which 
cannot    be    made    self-governing    under    our    forms    and    ultimately 
received  into  the  family  of   States.     If,  in  the  future,  the   people  of 
Cuba  and  Porto   Rico  agree  with   those  of   the   United  States    that 
annexation  is  mutually  desirable,  the  matter  can  be  decided,  and  in 
accordance  with  the  provisions  of  their  Constitution  and  ours. 

4.  Our  policy   in  the  Philippines  should   be  exactly   the  same. 
Let   the  people  fit   their  government  to  their  own   needs   with  the 
guarantee   of   our  protection    from  outside  interference    for  a  time, 
at  least. 

5.  Under  no  circumstances  should  distant  territory  inhabited  by 
an  alien    population,   not  self-governing  under  republican  forms,  be 
retained  as  a  permanent  possession  by  the  United  States. 

The  immediate  necessity  of  the  day  is  set  forth  in  the  petition 
of  the  "Anti-Imperialist  League  :" 

"They  urge,  therefore,  all  lovers  of  freedom,  without  regard  to 
party  associations,  to  cooperate  with  them  to  the  following  ends  : 

<( Fir 'St.  That  our  government  shall  take  immediate  steps  towards 
a  suspension  of  hostilities  in  the  Philippines  and  a  conference  with  the 
Philippine  leaders,  with  a  view  of  preventing  further  bloodshed  upon 
the  basis  of  a  recognition  of  their  freedom  and  independence  as  soon 
as  proper  guarantees  can  be  had  of  order  and  protection  to  property. 

"Second.  That  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  shall  tender 
an  official  assurance  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Philippine  Islands  that 
they  will  encourage  and  assist  in  the  organization  of  such  a  govern 
ment  in  the  Islands  as  the  people  thereof  shall  prefer,  and  that  upon 
its  organization  in  stable  manner  the  United  States,  in  accordance 
with  its  traditional  and  prescriptive  policy  in  such  cases,  will  recognize 
the  independence  of  the  Philippines  and  its  equality  among  nations, 
and  gradually  withdraw  all  military  and  naval  forces." 

There  is  nothing  before  us  now  save   to  make  peace  with  the 
Filipinos,  to  get  our   money  back  if  we  can,  to  get  a  coaling  station  ^ 
if  we  must — and  get  out.      These  people  must  first  be  free  before  they  ^ 
can  enter  a  nation  of  freemen. 

I  may  quote  in  this  connection  the  noble  words  of  Carl  Schurz  : 

"We  are  told  that,  having  grown  so  great  and  strong,  we  must 
at  least  cast  off  our  childish  reverence  for  the  teachings  of  Wash 
ington's  farewell  address — '  nursery  rhymes  that  were  sung  around  the 
cradle  of  the  republic.'  I  apprehend  that  many  of  those  who  now 
so  flippantly  scoff  at  the  heritage  the  Father  of  his  Country  left  us 
in  his  last  words  of  admonition,  have  never  read  that  venerable  doc 
ument.  I  challenge  those  who  have  to  show  me  a  single  sentence  of 

6 


\J 


general  import  in  it  that  would  not  as  a  wise  rule  of  national  conduct 
apply  to  the  circumstances  of  to-day.  What  is  it  that  has  given  to 
Washington's  farewell  address  an  authority  that  was  revered  by  all 
until  our  recent  victories  made  so  many  of  us  drunk  with  wild  ambi 
tions  ?  Not  only  the  prestige  of  Washington's  name,  great  as 
that  was  and  should  ever  remain.  No,  it  was  the  fact  that  under  a 
respectful  observance  of  those  teachings  this  Republic  has  grown  from 
the  most  modest  beginnings  into  a  Union  spanning  this  vast  continent, 
our  people  having  multiplied  from  a  handful  to  75,000,  ooo;  we  have 
risen  from  poverty  to  a  wealth  the  sum  of  which  the  imagination 
can  hardly  grasp  ;  this  American  nation  has  become  one  of  the 
greatest  and  most  powerful  on  earth,  and,  continuing  in  the  same 
course,  will  surely  become  the  greatest  and  most  powerful  of  all. 
Not  Washington's  name  alone  gave  his  teachings  their  dignity  and 
weight;  it  was  the  practical  results  of  his  policy  that  secured  to  it, 
until  now,  the  intelligent  approbation  of  the  American  people.  And 
unless  we  have  completely  lost  our  senses,  we  shall  never  despise  and 
reject  as  mere  '  nursery  rhymes  '  the  words  of  wisdom  left  us  by  the 
greatest  of  Americans,  following  which  the  American  people  have 
achieved  a  splendor  of  development  without  parallel  in  the  history  of 
mankind." 

The  grave  responsibility  we  have  assumed,  that  of  bringing  freedom 
to  the  oppressed,  calls  us  to  act  with  conscience  and  with  caution. 
We  are  no  longer  a  child  nation,  a  band  of  irresponsible  human  colts, 
but  mature  men,  capable  of  wielding  the  strongest  influence  humanity 
has  felt.  We  must  shun  folly.  We  must  despise  greed.  We  must 
turn  from  glitter  and  cant  and  sham.  We  must  hate  injustice  as  we 
have  hated  intolerance  and  oppression.  We  must  never  forget  among 
the  nations  we  alone  stand  for  the  individual  man. 

The  greatness  of  a  nation  lies  not  in  its  bigness  but  in  its  justice, 
in  the  wi>Jom  and  virtue  of  its  people,  and  in  the  prosperity  of  their 
individual  affairs.  The  nation  exists  for  its  men,  never  the  men  for 
the  nation.  "  I  cannot  help  thinking  of  you  as  you  deserve,"  said 
Thoreau  ;  "  O,  ye  governments!  The  only  government  that  I 
recognize — and  it  matters  not  how  few  are  at  the  head  of  it  or  how 
small  is  its  army — is  that  which  establishes  justice  in  the  land,  never 
that  which  establishes  injustice."  The  will  of  free  men  to  be  just,  one 
towards  another,  is  our  final  guarantee  that  "government  of  the 
people,  for  the  people,  by  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 


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